Three Huge Novels

The Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948) is one of the most important figures in 20th-century Hispanic poetry and, with Cesar Vallejo, one of the pioneering avant-gardists in Spanish. Originally from an upper-class Santiago family, Huidobro was fortunate to have the means to support himself and his family while he found his artistic way. After an early phase writing in a quasi-symbolist style in his native city, he moved to Paris and threw himself into the local artistic milieu with a passion, quickly becoming a notable figure, publishing two full-sized collections and four chapbooks in 1917-18, and a French-language selected poems in 1921. Influenced initially by Apollinaire, Huidobro quickly befriended both forward-looking French writers such as Reverdy, Cocteau and Radiguet, and the Spanish expatriate artists, including Picasso and Juan Gris.Hans Arp (1886-1966), better known in anglophone countries through his French name Jean, was a Franco-German sculptor, painter, and poet. He was involved in the Dada movement in both Switzerland and Germany, and also exhibited with the Blue Reiter Group, led by Klee and Kandinsky, and with the surrealists. He developed into one of the most significant abstract sculptors of the 20th century.