José Asunción Silva

Poesia, De Sobremesa

Lost in a shipwreck in 1895, rewritten before the author's suicide in 1896, and not published until 1925, José Asunción Silva's After-Dinner Conversation (De sobremesa) is one of Latin America's finest fin de siècle novels and the first one to be translated into English. Perhaps the single best work for understanding turn-of-the-twentieth-century writing in South America, After-Dinner Conversation is also cited as the continent's first psychological novel and an outstanding example of modernista fiction and the Decadent sensibility. Semi-autobiographical and more important for style than plot, After-Dinner Conversation is the diary of a Decadent sensation-collector in exile in Paris who undertakes a quest to find his beloved Helen, a vision whom his fevered imagination sees as his salvation. Along the way, he struggles with irreconcilable urges and temptations that pull him in every direction while he endures an environment indifferent or hostile to spiritual and intellectual pursuits, as did the modernista writers themselves. Kelly Washbourne's excellent translation preserves Silva's lush prose and experimental style. In the introduction, one of the most wide-ranging in Silva criticism, Washbourne places the life and work of Silva in their literary and historical contexts, including an extended discussion of how After-Dinner Conversation fits within Spanish American modernismo and the Decadent movement. Washbourne's perceptive comments and notes also make the novel accessible to general readers, who will find the work surprisingly fresh more than a century after its composition.

The Diary of a Decadent

After-Dinner Conversation

Poesía; De sobremesa

Kelly Washbourne

textos atribuidos a José Asunción Silva

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José Asunción Silva ...

Con la perspectiva que da el paso del tiempo, la figura del escritor colombiano José Asunción Silva (1865-1896) se ha convertido en el símbolo perfecto de los conflictos del artista frente a la sociedad burguesa del Fin de Siglo, y su trayectoria vital e intelectual, en una ejemplar manifestación de la crisis espiritual que acompaña la transición del siglo XIX al XX. Su obra, como su vida, fue breve, y se publicó tarde, pero, por estética y espíritu, cronológica y sensitivamente, compartió con la de sus compañeros de generación (la que habría de transformar la sensibilidad de la época, inaugurar la independencia literaria de Hispanoamérica y, de paso, configurar el primer gran «boom» de las letras del continente: el Modernismo) una rigurosa conciencia de artista moderno, cosmopolita y en constante evolución, que buscó y produjo una literatura que integra las diferentes tendencias estéticas e ideológicas de su época, que se muestra innovadora respecto a las que la precedieron y que resultó estimulante para las que habrían de sucederla.

De sobremesa

Poesía

Poesías de José Asunción Silva

Los mejores poemas de José Asunción Silva

José Asunción Silva

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