The Doubtful Strait / El Estrecho Dudoso

Book excerpt: "... very well translated... Cardenal merits praise for presenting, on such an ambitious scale, a passionate alternative history of the Spanish encounter with Central America." --Booklist "Combining hsitory with poetry, Cardenal exposes the violence, treachery, injustice, and exploitation that are so much a part of Central America and Mexico's] past and present." --World Literature Today "Explore this dense, beautiful poem and you will be rewarded with riches that 'delight and hurt not'." --Nicaragua Update "... a remarkable text.... El estrecho dudoso is a masterful and compelling poetic account of early colonial Central America, and the translation is likewise masterful." --Colonial Latin American Historical Review In this book-length poem, Nicaraguan priest and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal tells the story of the Spanish conquest of Central America from the "discovery" of the American continent to recent historical events. A remarkable achievement and an engrossing narrative, the poem is published here in both Spanish and English.