Eliot Weinberger

Eliot Weinberger (born 6 February 1949) is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. Born in New York City where he still lives, Weinberger is the recipient of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle (2000), the highest award the Mexican government bestows on foreign nationals. Weinberger earned the citation by virtue of his translations into English of the work of Octavio Paz, the noted Mexican and Nobel Prize winning poet. So far, Weinberger has been Paz's primary translator into English.

Weinberger discovered the writings of Octavio Paz as a youngster of thirteen, and by his late teens was working closely with the poet on English translations of Paz's work. Some of the significant translations Weinberger has undertaken include "Collected Poems", published in 1987, and "In the Light of India" and "A Tale of Two Gardens", both released in 1997.

According to Rafael H. Mojica in "World Literature Today",

a remarkable effect that not seldom obtains in Weinberger's work is the rendering of the rhythmic values of the Spanish original in the English version.... Weinberger has performed a commendable service to all readers of Mexican poetry in English.

Among his other recognitions and awards, Weinberger is the first recipient of Gregory Kolovakos Award for promotion of Latin American literature in the U.S., 1992. In 1999 Weinberger accepted the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism on behalf of Jorge Luis Borges. It was Weinberger's edited volume of Borges's "Selected Nonfictions" that had won the prestigious award. [In her "Americas" review of the title, Barbara Mujica noted that the work "has made available to the English-language reader 161 pieces of Borges's most significant non-fiction pieces, most of it for the first time. Two-thirds of the writing included in this volume has never been translated before. The rest has been newly translated for this edition." Mujica deemed the resulting work "exquisitely translated."]

elected bibliography

Writings by the author

* "Works on Paper" (essays), New Directions (New York, NY), 1986.
* (With Octavio Paz) "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei" (criticism), Moyer-Bell (Wakefield, RI), 1987.
* "Outside Stories" (essays), New Directions (New York, NY), 1992.
* (Editor) "Una antologia de la poesia norteamericana desde 1950", Ediciones del Equilibrista (Mexico), 1992.
* (Editor) "", Marsilio Publishing, 1993.
* "Written Reaction: Poetics, Politics, Polemics" (essays), Marsilio Publishing, 1996.
* "Karmic Traces" (essays), New Directions (New York, NY), 2000.
* (Editor) "The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry", New Directions (New York, NY), 2003
* "What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles" (essays), New Directions (New York, NY), 2005.
* "Muhammad", Verso (New York, London), 2006
* "An Elemental Thing" (essays), New Directions (New York, NY), 2007.

Editor and translator

* Octavio Paz, "Eagle or Sun?", October House, 1970, revised edition, New Directions (New York, NY), 1976.
* Octavio Paz, "A Draft of Shadows", New Directions (New York, NY), 1980.
* Homero Aridjis, "Exaltation of Light", Boa Editions (Brockport, NY), 1981.
* Octavio Paz, "Selected Poems", New Directions (New York, NY), 1984.
* Jorge Luis Borges, "Seven Nights", New Directions (New York, NY), 1984.
* Octavio Paz, "The Collected Poems 1957-1987", New Directions (New York, NY), 1987, revised edition, 1991.
* Vicente Huidobro, "Altazor", Graywolf (Port Townsend, WA), 1988.
* Octavio Paz, "A Tree Within", New Directions (New York, NY), 1988.
* Octavio Paz, "Sunstone", New Directions (New York, NY), 1991.
* Cecilia Vicuna, "Unravelling Words and the Weaving of Water", Graywolf (Port Townsend, WA), 1992.
* Xavier Villaurrutia, Nostalgia for Death, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1993.
* Octavio Paz, "In Light of India", Harcourt Brace (New York, NY), 1997.
* Octavio Paz, "A Tale of Two Gardens", New Directions (New York, NY), 1997.
* Octavio Paz, "An Erotic Beyond: Sade", 1998.
* (With Esther Allen and Suzanne Jille Levine; and editor) Jorge Luis Borges, "Selected Non-Fictions", Viking (New York, NY), 1999.
* (With Iona Man-Cheong) Bei Dao, "Unlock", New Directions (New York, NY), 2000.
* "The crafts of Mexico", edited by Margarita de Orellana, Alberto Ruy-Sánchez; guest editor, Eliot Weinberger. Smithsonian Books, (Washington), 2004.

Further reading

* "Americas" (English Edition), August, 1998, Barbara Mujica, review of "A Tale of Two Gardens: Poems from India, 1952-1995", p. 60; January, 2000, Barbara Mujica, review of "Selected Non-Fictions", p. 60.
* Boston Review, December, 2000/January, 2001, John Palattella, review of "Karmic Traces", pp. 56-57.
* "Contemporary Authors", (Thomson Gale, 2004)
* "New York Times", October 6, 1999, Richard Bernstein, "So Close, Borges's Worlds of Reality and Invention."
* New York Times Book Review, March 30, 1997, Raleigh Trevelyan, "One Nation under Many Gods, " p. 25; April 19, 1998, Laura Jamison, review of "An Erotic Beyond: Sade", p. 25.
* "World Literature Today", winter, 1995, Rafael H. Mojica, review of "Nostalgia for Death" / "Hieroglyphs of Desire: A Critical Study of Villaurrutia", p. 111.

Note

External links

* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/669 Eliot Weinberger exhibit] at the Academy of American Poets website
* [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n03/wein01_.html "What I heard about Iraq"] Weinberger in the "London Review of Books", 3 Feb 2005
* [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11389.htm "What I heard about Iraq in 2005"] Weinberger in the "London Review of Books" 27 Dec 2005
* [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20494 Notes on Susan] Weinberger discusses Susan Sontag on the occasion of the posthumously published (2007) "At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches" by Susan Sontag