Fable of an Inconsolable Man

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Poverty Studies. Urban Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval. "IN FABLE OF AN INCONSOLABLE MAN, Uruguayan poet Javier Etchevarren combines clear–eyed realism with a survivor's imaginative streak to take on the poverty and violence threaded through his own childhood in Montevideo. 'When one is honest, the world is a miser,' he writes. And despite his commitment to unblemished toughness, still, there are moments of transformation and grace in here when a mother grows extra arms to save her children, a boy becomes a beloved dead dog, and a child comes to know the world by reading wondrous encyclopedias in the library his mother cleans. Etchevarren's poems are vibrant psalms of perseverance and grit." — Erika Meitner

"In [these] poems, I feel my own struggles toward adulthood and the loneliness of such a road. Reading these emotionally deft and beautiful poems make me feel less alone." — Nate Marshall