Barroco and Other Writings

Severo Sarduy (1937-1993) was a Cuban novelist, poet, playwright, painter, critic, and winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger.Alex Verdolini is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Yale University and teaches at the Cooper Union. Iván Hofman is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at New York University.

• Note on Texts and TranslationIntroductionONE0. Echo Chamber I. The Word "BarrocoI. The Word "BarrocoII. Cosmology before the BaroqueIII. Baroque Cosmology: KeplerIV. Cosmology after the BaroqueV. SupplementTWOI. ZeroII. CircleIII. CycleOther WritingsMetaphor Squared: On GóngoraCubesThe Fury of the PaintbrushFurious BaroqueThe HeirFractal BaroqueNotes

"Severo Sarduy's writings combine a vibrant Cuban language with sophisticated theoretical reflections, and Barroco is one of his most important works: a meditation on the aesthetic that shaped Latin American and European cultures in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, along with a Neo-Baroque turn in the twentieth."—Rubén Gallo, Princeton University "The Baroque, it could be said, is an exercise in the liberation of the Spanish language. Barroco refuses the foregone conclusions perpetuated by language; Sarduy embraces the Neo-Baroque practice of remaking representation, impelled by the need for a language free of the world's mere duplication in writing."—Julio Ortega, Brown University "At long last, in a new and complete translation that navigates the author's tergiversation between Spanish and French, we have a definitive English edition of Barroco: an intriguing experiment with theories of figuration, geometric formalism, temporal recursion (retombée), and cosmic eccentricity by the Cuban exile Severo Sarduy. A novel exercise in anamorphic, elliptical thinking, a true event in the history of poetics and critical thought, Barroco will become essential reading for thinkers and comparatists of every stripe."—Emily Apter, New York University "In a time of ubiquitous minimalism, where cannabis dispensaries and coffee shops look like Apple stores; of PhD dissertations that elaborate on niche topics through very specialized lenses, Severo Sarduy's Barroco and Other Writings breaks out from the grave as a fresh, lively book."—Carlos Egaña, Latin American Literature Today