About the Author

Enrique Fierro was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1942. He studied Literature at the University of Montevideo. After graduating he taught Literary Theory there and published numerous books in the fields of poetry, literary criticism and translation. His translations include works by William Shakespeare, Jean Genet, Paul Eluard and Ezra Pound. During the Uruguayan military dictatorship (1973-1984) he lived in exile in Mexico for political reasons. Later he continued to be drawn to the country, where he had close associations and detailed knowledge of domestic literary life. In 1985, during the first phase of Uruguay's democracy, he returned to Montevideo and was director of the national library until 1989. Since then he has been living in Austin, Texas, and teaches Contemporary Hispanoamerican Literature at the University of Texas. He has received many awards for his work, including the Uruguayan Poetry Prize, the Montevideo Poetry Prize and the Uruguayan Theatre Critics' Translation Prize. He was on the editing panel of the Uruguayan magazines 'Maldoror' and 'Po'tica' and the Mexican cultural and literary journal 'Vuelta'. He now works for the following magazines: 'R¡o de la Plata'(Paris), 'Cuadernos Americanos' and 'Par'ntesis' (both Mexico City) and 'El pez y la serpiente'(Managua).