Other Letters to Milena

Other Letters to Milena is a translation of a mixedgenre work by acclaimed Cuban poet Reina Mara Rodrguez in which poetry merges into creative nonfiction, culminating in a series of essays. Published in Spanish as Otras cartas a Milena, Other Letters to Milena shows Rodrguez confronting pressing issues at the turn of the twenty first century. These involve a new postSoviet world and the realities of diasporic existence, which have a profound effect even on people like Rodrguez who have not migrated but continue to live and work in their home nation. The books title references Franz Kafka, whose Letters to Milena was published after his death in 1952, signals that Rodrguez participates in her citys long cosmopolitan tradition asserted by Cuban writers and scholars of Cuban literature. Rodrguezs youngest daughter, featured most prominently in the letters making up the collections centerpiece, A Girls Story, was named after Milena Jesensk, the recipient of Kafkas letters. With the poems provided in a bilingual format, the collection will be of interest both to English readers in general (this will be the first English translation of a complete Rodrguez collection not excerpted from a larger work) and to Spanish readers unable to obtain the collection in any form, given the difficulty of distributing Cuban literature outside that country. At the end of the book Dykstra has included a critical commentary. It clarifies many of the authors references, such as details pertaining to her family history items Dykstra learned during lengthy discussions with the author about her work and influences about her choices in the translation.