In the Stillness of Marble
Teresa Wilms Montt
Translated by Jessica Sequiera
Originally published in Spain in 1918, and here translated into English for the first time by Jessica Sequeira, In the Stillness of Marble is a set of thirty-five prose poems by the Chilean writer Teresa Wilms Montt directly addressed to a dead lover named Anuarí, who in reality was Horacio Ramos Mejía, a nineteen-year-old man who killed himself in front of her after his love was unreciprocated.
At once tragic and personal, visionary and transgressive, these pieces, in their vital intimacy, read not only as letters to the dead, but also as incantations or prayers, expressing the passion, spirituality, and intensity of a woman who lived a tumultuous, rebellious life and refused to conform to the expectations of her time and surroundings.
About the Author
Teresa Wilms Montt was born on September 8, 1893 in Viña del Mar, Chile, into an elite, well-connected family. Her first book, Inquietudes sentimentales, consisted of fifty poems with surrealist features, while her second, Los tres cantos, explored eroticism and spirituality. Both books enjoyed great success in Argentine intellectual circles. In 1918, she moved to Madrid, where she published two works widely recognized by Spanish literary critics: In the Stillness of Marble and Anuarí. Upon returning to Buenos Aires in 1919, she published her fifth book, Cuentos para hombres que todavía son niños. She died in 1921, in Paris, from an overdose of Veronal.
About the Translator
Jessica Sequeira was born in San Jose, California in 1989, and currently lives in Santiago de Chile. Her works include the novel A Furious Oyster (Dostoyevsky Wannabe), and the collection of essays Other Paradises: Poetic Approaches to Thinking in a Technological Age (Zero).
Her translations include Bernardo Couto Castillo’ s Asphodels (Snuggly Books, 2020), Enrique Gómez Carrillo’ s Sentimental Stories (Snuggly Books, 2020), Rafaela Contreras’ s The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories (Snuggly Books, 2019), Adolfo Couve’ s When I Think of My Missing Head (Snuggly Books, 2018),and Liliana Colanzi’ s Our Dead World (Dalkey Archive).
Paperback, 100 pages. Release date: January 8, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-4294093207
Price: US$13.00
Hardcover, 102 pages. Limited to 70 copies
Release date: January 8, 2019
Price: US$27.50