by Ronald Haladyna (Editor)
Exotic Territory: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Paraguayan Poetry seeks to address a dearth of information in the English-speaking world about Paraguayan poetry of the past forty years. The twelve outstanding poets included here-José Luis Appleyard, Moncho Azuaga, Gladys Carmagnola, Susy Delgado, Oscar Ferreiro, Renée Ferrer, Joaquín Morales, Amanda Pedrozo, Jacobo Rauskin, Elvio Romero, Ricardo de La Vega, Carlos Villagra Marsal-represent a wide diversity of themes, styles, and perspectives in this little-known nation. Most of them have published extensively, have been recognized through literary awards and inclusion in national and international anthologies, and continue writing today. To contextualize the poets and their poetry for readers unfamiliar with Paraguay, the Introduction provides a brief background of its geography, history, government, economy, society, and artistic milieu. Following that is a wide selection of representative poems published previously in Spanish, with translations in English on facing pages. The book concludes with a brief biographical sketch of each poet, followed by an unprecedented and extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources intended to encourage those readers who might want to pursue further reading or research on any poet of interest.