José Lezama Lima

Infobox Person
name=José Lezama-Lima


caption=From the collection of Eloisa Lezama-Lima and her book "Una Familia Habanera"
birth_date=December 19, 1910
birth_place=Havana, Cuba
death_date=August 8, 1976
death_place=Havana, Cuba

José Lezama Lima (December 19, 1910 in Havana, Cuba - August 8, 1976 in Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban writer and poet who is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature.Fact|date=May 2008

Born in the Columbia Military Encampment close to Havana in the city of Marianao where his father was a colonel, Lezama lived through the most turbulent times of Cuba's history, fighting first against the Machado dictatorship, and later surviving the Castro regime. A gay man himself,citation |title=Before Night Falls |last=Arenas |first=Reinaldo |authorlink=Reinaldo Arenas |year=1992 |isbn=1-852-42808-2] his literary output includes the semi-autobiographical, baroque novel Paradiso (1966), the story of a young man and his struggles with his mysterious illness, the death of his father, and his developing homosexuality and poetic sensibilities. Lima also wrote several anthologies of Cuban poetry and the magazines Verbum and Orígenes, presiding as the patriarch of Cuban letters for most of his later years.

Although he only left Cuba on at most two occasions (one trip to Jamaica and a possible trip to Mexico), Lezama's poetry, essays and two novels draw images and ideas from nearly all of the world's cultures and from all historical time periods. The baroque style that he forged relied equally upon his Góngora-influenced syntax and stunning constellations of unlikely images. Lezama Lima's first published work, a long poem called "Muerte de Narciso," released when he was only twenty-seven, made him immediately famous within CubaFact|date=May 2008 and established Lezama's well-wrought style and classical subject matter.

In addition to his poems and novels, Lezama wrote many essays on figures of world literature like Mallarmé, Valéry, Góngora and Rimbaud as well as on Latin American baroque asethetics. Most notably the essays published as La expresión americana lay out his vision of the European baroque, its relation to the classical, and of the American baroque.

José Lezama Lima died in 1976 at age 65 and was buried in the Colon Cemetery, Havana. He was influential to Cuban and Puerto Rican writers of his generation and the next, such as Virgilio Piñera, Reinaldo Arenas, René Marqués, and Giannina Braschi, who depict his life and works in their writing.

Further reading

English:
*From modernism to neobaroque : Joyce and Lezama Lima / César Augusto Salgado., 2001
*Assimilation/generation/resurrection : contrapuntal readings in the poetry of José Lezama Lima / B. Heller., 1997
*Secondary moderns : mimesis, history, and revolution in Lezama Lima's "American expression" / B. Levinson., 1996
*José Lezama Lima, poet of the image / Emilio Bejel., 1990
*The American gnosis of José Lezama Lima / Rubén Ríos-Avila., 1990
*José Lezama Lima's joyful vision : a study of Paradiso and other prose works / Gustavo Pellon., 1989
*A theology of absence : the poetic system of José Lezama Lima / Rubén Ríos-Avila., 1986
*The poetic fiction of José Lezama Lima / Raymond D Souza., 1983

Spanish:

*Aldabonazo en Trocadero 162 / William Navarrete y Regina Avila, Ed. Aduana Vieja, Valencia, 2008.
*Antología para un sistema poético del mundo de José Lezama Lima / Iván González Cruz., 2004
*Paradiso : la aventura mítica / Margarita Mateo Palmer., 2002
*La posibilidad infinita : archivo de José Lezama Lima / Iván González Cruz., 2000
*La escritura de lo posible : el sistema poético de José Lezama Lima / Remedios Mataix., 2000
*Narciso hermético : Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y José Lezama Lima / Aída Beaupied., 1997
*El espejo y la palabra : Mann, Borges, Proust, Lezama Lima / Jaime Valdivieso., 1997
*La imagen y el cuerpo : Lezama y Sarduy / Virgilio López Lemus., 1997
*Recopilación de textos sobre José Lezama Lima / Pedro Simón., 1995
*El primitivo implorante : el "sistema poético del mundo" de José Lezama Lima / Arnaldo Cruz., 1994
*José Lezama Lima, poeta de la imagen / Emilio Bejel., 1994
*La región olvidada de José Lezama Lima / Jorge Luis Llópiz., 1994
*José Lezama Lima : bases y génesis de un sistema poético / Enrique Márquez., 1991
*La cosmovisión poética de José Lezama Lima en Paradiso y Oppiano Licario / Alina Gingerich., 1990
*José Lezama Lima, o, El hechizo de la búsqueda / Rita Molinero., 1989
*Lezama Lima / Eugenio Suárez Galbán., 1987
*Las eras imaginarias de Lezama Lima / Cesia Ziona Hirshbein., 1984
*Coloquio Internacional sobre la Obra de José Lezama Lima / Université de Poitiers., 1984
*Lezama Lima / Rafael Humberto Moreno-Durán., 1981
*José Lezama Lima, textos críticos / Justo C Ulloa., 1979
*Paradiso y el sistema poético de Lezama Lima / Margarita Junco Fazzolari., 1979
*Poesía y conocimiento : Borges, Lezama Lima, Octavio Paz / Ramón Xirau., 1978

References

* "Una Familia Habanera" by Eloisa Lezama-Lima (Ediciones Universal, 1998, ISBN 0-89729-862-4)