AUTHOR
Born in Yoro, Honduras in 1930 into a poor family, Roberto Sosa’s childhood coincides with the dictatorship of Tiburcio Carías Andino, a period of severe political repression. He spent his early life working “to earn honorably my frijoles, tortillas, books, and music. From puberty to my second childhood I’ve sold bread, measured heights, [written] a poem or an editorial for a magazine or newspaper, or directed some journalistic endeavor.” He didn’t publish his first book until he was nearly thirty.
After Sosa’s Los pobres (1969) won the Adonais Prize in Spain and Un mundo para todos dividido (1971) won the Casa de las Américas Prize in Cuba, Latin America began to recognize Sosa as a major poetic talent. His work is characterized by clarity and richness of language combined with an attack on privilege and oppression.
By 1990 he had published six books of poetry and three of prose, as well as two anthologies of Honduran literature. That same year his Obra Completa (Complete Works) was published in Honduras in a beautifully printed and carefully prepared edition with interviews, a bibliography, a chronology, and a biographical summary.
Four collections of his poetry have been translated into English—The Difficult Days (Jim Lindsay, Princeton, 1985), Poems (Edward V. McLaughlin, Spanish Literature Publications, 1984), The Common Grief (Jo Anne Engelbert, Curbstone, 1994), and The Return of the River (Jo Anne Engelbert, Curbstone, 2002).
Sosa is currently the editor of the magazine Presente (a review of Central American arts and letters published in Tegucigalpa), president of the Honduran Journalists’ Union, and teaches literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras. His poetry has been translated into French, German, Russian and English. He resides in Honduras’ capital city, Tegucigalpa.
Works by Roberto Sosa from Curbstone Press:
