Enrique Lihn (1929–1988) was a Chilean poet, short-story writer, novelist, literary critic, playwright, comic book creator, and essayist. Lihn’s book La pieza oscura (The Dark Room, 1963)—also published by New Directions—had a marked impact on poets and writers throughout Latin America, and won the prestigious Casa de las Américas Award. Jonathan Cohen is the editor and compiler of William Carlos Williams’ By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish,1916–1959 and editor and translator of Ernesto Cardenal’s Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems, both published recently by New Directions. John Felstiner is the author of Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. He teaches at Stanford University. David Unger, the recipient of the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Literature Prize, has translated eighteen titles, including Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Mr. President, The Popol Vuh, and books by Enrique Lihn, Nicanor Parra, Rigoberta Menchú, and Silvia Molina.
