Juan Gelman (3 May 1930 – 14 January 2014) was an Argentine poet. He published more than twenty books of poetry between 1956 an his death in early 2014. Gelman received the Cervantes Prize in 2007, the most important in Spanish literature. His works celebrate life but are also tempered with social and political commentary and reflect his own painful experiences with the politics of his country.

Life and career

Juan Gelman was born in Buenos Aires, in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, in 1930. He was the third son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. His father, José Gelman, was a social revolutionary who participated in the 1905 revolution in Russia; he immigrated to Argentina, went back shortly after the Bolshevik revolution, and then returned to Argentina for good, disillusioned.

Juan Gelman learned to read when he was three years old, and spent much of his childhood reading and playing soccer. He developed an interest in poetry at a very young age, influenced by his brother Boris, who read to him several poems in Russian, a language that Juan did not know. The experience of reading Dostoevsky's "The Insulted and Humiliated" at age eight made a profound impression on him.

As a young man he was a member of several notable literary groups and later became an important journalist. He also worked as a translator at the United Nations. He has always been an ardent political activist. In 1975 he became involved with theMontoneros, though he later distanced himself from the group. After the 1976 Argentine coup, he was forced into exile from Argentina. In 1976, his son Marcelo and his pregnant daughter-in-law, Maria Claudia, aged 20 and 19, were kidnapped from their home. They became two of the 30,000 desaparecidos, the people who **vanished** without a trace during the reign of the military junta. In 1990 Gelman was led to identify his son's remains (he had been executed and buried in a barrel filled with sand and cement), and years later, in 2000, he was able to trace his granddaughter, born in a backdoor hospital before Maria Claudia's murder and given to a pro-government family in Uruguay. The remains of Maria Claudia have not yet been recovered.

During his long exile, Gelman lived in Europe until 1988, then in United States and later in Mexico, with his wife, Argentinian psychologist Mara La Madrid.

In 1997, Juan Gelman received the Argentine National Poetry Prize, in recognition of his life's work, and in 2007 the Cervantes Prize, the most important prize for Spanish writers. He has also had a long and brilliant career as journalist, writing for the Argentinian newspaper Pagina/12 until his death.

Gelman included Uruguayan police officer Hugo Campos Hermida in a legal suit lodged in Spain for the "disappearance" of his niece in Uruguay.

Works

Poetry:

• Violín y otras cuestiones, Buenos Aires, Gleizer, 1956.
• El juego en que andamos, Buenos Aires, Nueva Expresión, 1959.
• Velorio del solo, Buenos Aires, Nueva Expresión, 1961.
• Gotán (1956-1962), Buenos Aires, La Rosa Blindada, 1962. (Neuauflage 1996)
• Cólera Buey, La Habana, La Tertulia, 1965. (Neuauflage 1994)
• Los poemas de Sidney West, Buenos Aires, Galerna, 1969. (Neuauflage 1995)
• Fábulas, Buenos Aires, La Rosa Blindada, 1971.
• Relaciones, Buenos Aires, La Rosa Blindada, 1973.
• Hechos y Relaciones, Barcelona, Lumen, 1980.
• Si dulcemente, Barcelona, Lumen, 1980.
• Citas y Comentarios, Visor Madrid, 1982.
• Hacia el Sur, México, Marcha, 1982.
• Com/posiciones (1983-1984), Barcelona, Ediciones del Mall, 1986.
• Interrupciones I, Buenos Aires, Libros de Tierra Firme, 1986.
• Interrupciones II, Buenos Aires, Libros de Tierra Firme, 1988.
• Anunciaciones, Madrid, Visor, 1988.
• Carta a mi madre, Buenos Aires, Libros de Tierra Firme, 1989.
• Dibaxu, Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 1994.
• Salarios del impío, Buenos Aires, Libros de Tierra Firme, 1993.
• Incompletamente, Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 1997.
• Valer la pena, Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 2001.
• País que fue será, Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 2004.
• Mundar, Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 2007.
• De atrásalante en su porfía, Madrid, Visor, und Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 2009
• El emperrado corazón amora, Barcelona, Tusquets und Buenos Aires, Seix Barral, 2011

Anthologies:

• Poemas, Casa de las Américas, La Habana, 1960.
• Obra poética, Corregidor, Buenos Aires, 1975.
• Poesía, Casa de las Américas, La Habana, 1985.
• Antología poética, Vintén, Montevideo, (1993).
• Antología personal, Desde la Gente, Instituto Movilizador de Fondos Cooperativos, Buenos Aires, 1993.
• En abierta oscuridad, Siglo XXI, México, 1993.
• Antología poética, Espasa Calpe, Buenos Aires, 1994.
• De palabra (1971-1987). Prefazione di Julio Cortázar, Visor, Madrid, 1994.
• Oficio Ardiente (2005), Patrimonio Nacional y la Universidad de Salamanca.
• Fulgor del aire (2007), Lom Ediciones, Santiago del Chile
• De palabra: Poesía III (1973-1989) (2008), Visor Libros, Madrid
• Bajo la luvia ajena (2009), Seix Barral, Barcelona

Prose:

• Prosa de prensa, Ediciones B, España, 1997
• Ni el flaco perdón de Dios/Hijos de desaparecidos (coautore con Mara La Madrid), Planeta, Buenos Aires, 1997
• Nueva prosa de prensa, Ediciones B Argentina, Buenos Aires, 1999
• Afganistan/Iraq: el imperio empantanado, Buenos Aires, 2001
• Miradas, Seix Barral, Buenos Aires, 2005
• Escritos urgentes, Capital Intellectual, Buenos Aires, 2009
• Escritos urgentes II, Capital intellectual, Buenos Aires, 2010
• El ciempiés y la araña, ilustraciones de Eleonora Arroyo, Capital intellectual, México, 2011

Criticism:

• Juan Gelman : esperanza, utopía y resistencia / Pablo Montanaro, 2006
• La escritura del duelo en la poesía de Juan Gelman / Geneviève Fabry, 2005
• El llamado de los desaparecidos : sobre la poesía de Juan Gelman / Edmundo Gómez Mango, 2004
• Juan Gelman y la nueva poesía hispanoamericana / Miguel Correa Mujica, 2001
• Juan Gelman : poesía de sombra de la memoria / Elena Tamargo Cordero, 2000
• Acercamientos a Juan Gelman / José Bru, 2000
• Palabra de Gelman : en entrevistas y notas periodísticas / Pablo Montanaro, 1998
• La poesía de Gelman: cuando surgen las palabras" / Daniel Freidemberg, 1997
• Juan Gelman : las estrategias de la otredad : heteronimia, intertextualidad, traducción / María del Carmen Sillato, 1996
• Como temblor del aire : la poesía de Juan Gelman, ensayos críticos / Lilián Uribe, 1995
• Confiar en el misterio : viaje por la poesía de Juan Gelman / Jorge Boccanera, 1994
• Juan Gelman : contra las fabulaciones del mundo / Miguel Dalmaroni, 1993
• Conversaciones con Juan Gelman : contraderrota, Montoneros y la revolución perdida / Roberto Mero, 1987
• La poesía de Juan Gelman o la ternura desatada / Hugo Achugar, 1985
• Juan Gelman, poeta argentino / Beatriz Varela de Rozas, 2004

Translated works in English:

• Unthinkable Tenderness: Selected Poems, trans.: Joan Lindgren, University of California Press, 1997
• The Poems of Sidney West, trans.: Katherine M. Hedeen & Victor Rodríguez Nuñez, Salt Publishing, 2009
• Between Words: Juan Gelman Public Letter, trans.: Lisa Rose Bradford, CIAL, 2010
• Commentaries and Citations, trans.: Lisa Rose Bradford, Coimbra Editions, Poetry in Translation, 2011
• Nightingales again, trans.: J. S. Tennant, in MPT Review, Series 3 no. 11 Frontiers, 2011
• Com/positions, trans.: Lisa Rose Bradford, Coimbra Editions, Poetry in Translation, 2013