Desolation of the Chimera: Last Poems

In these memories and landscapes, in these notes toward the history of his sensibility, there is great objectivity: the poet attempts only to illuminate, with an almost impersonal light, something very personal: a few moments of his life. -Octavio Paz

Written between 1950 and 1962, the poems in this bilingual collection amount to the final poetic testament of one of Spain’s most important twentieth-century poets.

Luis Cernuda (1902-1963) was a leading member of Spain’s legendary Generation of 1927. He left Spain during the civil war in 1938 and never returned.

Stephen Kessler is a poet, translator, essayist, and editor.