The Doubtful Strait/El Estrecho Dudoso

"... 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.

ERNESTO CARDENAL is a poet, priest, and revolutionary. His works include Cosmic Canticle, Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems, In Cuba, and Los Ovnis de Oro / Golden UFOs. JOHN LYONS has translated Cardenal's Cosmic Canticles and is the author of a study of Cardenal. TAMARA R. WILLIAMS is Associate Professor of Spanish at Hamilton College.