Dannie Abse’s newest book of poems, about to appear, is ARCADIA, ONE MILE (Hutchinson, 1999). He is the editor of WELSH RETROSPECTIVES (with Carey Archard; Dufour Editions) and TWENTIETH CENTURY ANGL0-WELSH POETRY (Seren Books/Poetry Wales, 1998); among his books of poems are REMEMBRANCE OF CRIMES PAST (Persea Books, 1993) and WHITE COAT, PURPLE COAT: Collected Poems 1948-1988 (George Braziller, 1992). Dannie Abse practices medicine in London.

Benjamin H. Cheever  is a Contributing Editor of Archipelago. His “Confession of A Lover, Spurned” appeared in our inaugural issue. He is the author of THE PLAGIARIST and THE PARTISAN (both, Atheneum) and edited THE LETTERS OF JOHN CHEEVER (Simon and Schuster). His novel FAMOUS AFTER DEATH will be published by Crown in April 1999.

Henry Martin was born in Philadelphia and received degrees in English literature from Bowdoin College and New York University, where he also studied Romance languages. He translates contemporary Italian literature and regularly contributes as a critic to a number of international art magazines, including Art News and Flash Art. In addition to his translations of Anna Maria Ortese (THE IGUANA; A MUSIC BEHIND THE WALL, Vols. One and Two) and Giorgio Manganelli (ALL THE ERRORS), he has written extensively about art, including two volumes in collaboration with the Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello, HOW TO IMAGINE and WHY DUCHAMP, both published by McPherson & Company. Henry Martin lives with his wife, the artist Betty Skuber, and their son, John-Daniel, in the mountains of southern Tyrol not far from Bolzano, Italy.

Maria Negroni was born in Argentina in 1951. She holds a PhD in Latin American literature from Columbia University, and has received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships. Three books of her poems have been published by Libros de Tierra Firme (Buenos Aires): DE TANTO DESOLAR (1985), PER/CANTA (1989) and LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO (1991). Two collections of poetry, ISLANDIA and EL VIAJE DE LA NOCHE were published, respectively, in 1994, by Monte Avila Editores (Caracas) and Editorial Lumen (Barcelona). Bilingual editions are forthcoming of ISLANDIA (Station Hill Press) and LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO/CAGE UNDERCOVER (Sun & Moon Press). She has also received a National Book Award for EL VIAJE DE LA NOCHE (which also was first runner-up at the Princeton University Poetry Series) and was first runner-up for the Planeta Prize 1997, for her novel EL SUEÑO de URSULA. She directs a poetry magazine edited in Buenos Aires, Abyssinia. A selection from EL VIAJE DE LA NOCHE/NIGHT JOURNEY appeared in our inaugural issue.

Anna Maria Ortese was born in Naples, in 1914. Her first book, a collection of stories published in 1937, was acclaimed as the work of a major new magical realist. (The critical phrase “magical realism” was largely the invention of the writer Massimo Bontempelli, who is also credited with having discovered Ortese.) She has written more than a dozen volumes of stories, novels, and essays, and has been the recipient of Italian literary prizes, among them Strega, the Premio Viareggio, and the Fiuggi. Although for fifty years her writing reached relatively small audiences, her most recent works have appeared on the Italian bestseller lists. In 1986, her novel, THE IGUANA, appeared in an English translation by Henry Martin, published by McPherson & Company, who also publish two volumes of Ortese’s stories under the title A MUSIC BEHIND THE WALL, the second volume of which appeared in 1998. “The Great Street,” a story, appeared in ARCHIPELAGO, Vol. 1, No. 1. Anna Maria Ortese died in 1998.

Anne Twitty’s  translations of the book-length poems of Maria Negroni are forthcoming in the bilingual editions CAGE UNDERCOVER/LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO (Sun & Moon Press) and ISLANDIA (Station Hill Press). A selection of her translations from Negroni’s ISLANDIA appeared in The Paris Review (Spring 1994) and in Mandorla. She has also translated the Cuban poet Magali Alabau (HERMANA/SISTER, Editorial Betania, 1992; LIEBE, La torre de Papel, 1993). Anne Twitty was for some years editor of the Epicycle section of Parabola, which published her essays on myth, creation, and memory. A selection from Maria Negroni’s novel EL SUEÑO de URSULA/URSULA’S DREAM was published in Spanish and in Anne Twitty’s translation, in the journal of The America’s Society, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts (Spring 1998). Her translations from Maria Negroni’s EL VIAJE DE LA NOCHE/NIGHT JOURNEY appeared in ARCHIPELAGO Vol. 1, No. 1.

In Memorium
WILLIAM GADDIS
1922-1998

THE RECOGNITIONS (1955)
JR (1975)
CARPENTER'S GOTHIC (1985)
A FROLIC OF HIS OWN (1994)
AGAPE AGAPE (Post.)

father of our friend and contributor
Sarah Gaddis

Our friend and contributor Janet Palmer Mullaney is editor of TRUTHTELLERS OF THE TIMES, Interviews with Contemporary Women Poets. University of Michigan Press, just out.

The next issue of Archipelago, on-line in mid-March, will feature the work of Stella Snead, the English Surrealist painter and photographer. Her spoof, “Early Cabbage,” with digitized photographs, appeared in Archipelago Vol. 1 No. 3.

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