Book News: Argentine Poet Juan Gelman Dies At 83
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Argentine poet Juan Gelman, who denounced the country's "dirty war" of the '70s and '80s, died Tuesday in Mexico City, according to a statement from the Mexican government's arts council. He was 83. The author of more than 20 collections of poetry and a prominent journalist, Gelman won the Cervantes Prize in 2007. It is the highest literary honor in the Spanish-speaking world. He fled Argentina shortly before a military dictatorship took power in a 1976 coup d'tat. His son and daughter-in-law were among tens of thousands of people "disappeared" — kidnapped or killed — during the country's "Dirty War." Gelman's daughter-in-law gave birth shortly before she died, and her daughter was placed with a family in Uruguay, according to the BBC. Gelman was reunited with his granddaughter in 2000, after years of searching. In one poem, "The Deluded," translated by Joan Lindgren, he wrote:
hope fails us often
grief never.
that's why some think
that known grief is better
than unknown grief.
they believe that hope is an illusion.
they are deluded by grief.