{"product_id":"manzano-sonia-last-returpb","title":"Manzano, Sonia: Last Return to Eden and Other Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eLavender Ink \/ Diálogos, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTranslated by \u003cspan\u003eAlexis Levitin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: February 15, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this collection of daring poems, famed Ecuadorian writer Sonia Manzano, in her first full-length English translation, weaves together materials from Genesis, The Odyssey, and modern cinema, though her major inspiration clearly springs from two admired predecessors: Walt Whitman and Sappho. Whitman, the American bard of freedom, often appears as her Vergil, her guide, while Sappho, who passionately merged Eros and Thanatos, is her constant inspiration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is truly a revelation to have these powerful, often surrealistic, and wonderfully allusive poems by Sonia Manzano in a superb English translation by Alexis Levitin. Manzano’s poems are filled with imagery that sears to the soul—it’s a book that remains, reading after reading, hot to the touch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e— Ed Folsom, long-time editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSonia Manzano is a poet, and her suffering is a lyric. Alexis Levitin’s translation gets this right; it’s clean and clear, like her starkly concrete images, the meat of her “fossilized violin of desire.” Like the original, this translation unveils a slow triumph of will—the lyric “goes on playing.” Our luck that English is the instrument!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Peter Thompson, translator of Fernando Arrabal’s Letter To General Franco\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlexis Levitin’s translation of Sonia Manzano’s eight-part poetic suite “Ah Time” is heart-rending and enlightening—the poet’s appeal to current and future generations, meditating on the poet’s life, past and present racial and social injustices, police brutality, and misogyny. The sequence closes with the poet’s moving recognition of her fleeting time, the enduring nature of senseless suffering, and the fight that must go on, while she repeats this generation’s most poignant cry for help and call to action: George Floyd’s “I can’t breathe.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Adam Vines, Editor of Birmingham Poetry Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44609836023831,"sku":"9781956921656","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/1768669404-900.jpg?v=1771625710","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/manzano-sonia-last-returpb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}