Heaven

Vilas Manuel

This is the first translation of Spanish poet Manuel Vilas's two major collections "Heaven" ("El cielo", 2000) and "Heat" ("Calor", 2008) into English. Thematically fuelled with alcohol, death and sex, they go off into freewheeling megalomaniacal flights of fantasy. The poet James Womackhas won prizes for his versions of Vilas's work, and of Mayakovsky's.

Vilas speaks in the voice of bitter experience, experience which seems intent on sending him up. He is a novelist as well as a poet, and his poems tell stories as the speaker moves quixotically across the map, across land and water, and between romances. His tact and instinct for rhythm and detail give the reader a firm sense of place and tone. Universal in their concerns, taking in love and the end of love, life and the end of life, the poems are also resolutely Spanish in how they speak, bluntly and with black humour, always alert for the fantastic.

About the Author

Manuel Vilas is a Spanish writer. He is the author of several books, including thirteen collections of poetry, seven books of essays, and six novels. His most recent novel, "Ordesa", was a bestseller in Spain and is forthcoming in a number of languages, including French, German and English. He has won many prizes for his work, including the Premio de las Letras Aragonesas 2015. He currently divides his time between Spain and the United States, where he teaches at the University of Iowa.

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