About the Book

‘Homero Aridjis’ poems open a door into light.’ Seamus Heaney

Praise for Homero Aridjis

From Octavio Paz: ‘In the poetry of Homero Aridjis there is the gaze, the pulse of the poet, the discontinuous time of practical and rational life and the continuity of desire and death: there is the poet’s primal truth.’

From Yves Bonnefoy: ‘A great flame passes through the words, the poetry of Homero Aridjis, who sets reality alight in images that at once illuminate and consume it, making life a sister of dream. Homero is a great poet; our century has great need of him.’

From J M G Le Clézio: ‘Aridjis’s work is built on this intuitive sense that at times touches on the realm of dreams, or as Luis Buñuel said of Aridjis’s Moctezuma, “The sense of waking from a nightmare”, and moves from the singular to the universal. ’

Bios

HOMERO ARIDJIS won a scholarship from the Mexican Writers’ Center at the age of 19, and in 1964 was the youngest-ever recipient of the Xavier Villaurrutia Award for best book of the year. After two years in Europe on a Guggenheim fellowship, he served as ambassador to Switzerland and then The Netherlands while still in his thirties. Back in Mexico, in 1985 Aridjis and 99 other renowned artists and intellectuals founded the legendary Group of 100, an activist organization that addresses national and international environmental issues. Between 1997 and 2003 he served two terms as president of PEN International. He was Mexico’s ambassador to UNESCO from 2007 until 2010, and since then has lived in Mexico City. Aridjis has published 51 volumes of poetry, fiction, children’s books, essays, and plays. His work has been translated into twenty languages and recognized with literary prizes such as the Grinzane Cavour (Italy), the Prix Roger-Caillois (France), the Smederevo Golden Key, three international poetry prizes in Italy and the Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada). Recent books in English translation include The Child Poet (2016), News of the Earth (2017), Maria the Monarch (2017), Smyrna in Flames (2021) and Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence (2023).

FIONA SHAW is an award-winning actor of film, theatre and television. Fiona’s film appearances include My Left Foot (1989), The Butcher Boy (1997), Fracture (2007) and the Harry Potter series (2001-10). On stage, Fiona has appeared in productions around the world, including plays for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal National Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. And in television, Fiona has appeared in the series Gormenghast (2000), Trueblood (2011), Fleabag (2019) and Baptiste (2021), amongst many other programmes. Fiona has twice been awarded the Olivier Award for Best Actress (in 1990 and 1994); and she won a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress in 2019 for her role in the BBC drama series Killing Eve.