Víctor Rodríguez Núnez is a Cuban poet, journalist, literary critic and translator.

In addition to Cuba, he has lived in Nicaragua, Colombia, and the United States, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College.

Poetry

Rodríguez Núñez has published eighteen books of poetry, including:

Cayama (Santiago de Cuba: Uvero, 1979)
Con raro olor a mundo (Havana: Unión, 1981)
Noticiario del solo (Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1987)
Cuarto de desahogo (Havana: Unión, 1993)
Los poemas de nadie y otros poemas (Intro. Juan Manuel Roca. Medellín: Tecnológico de Antioquia, 1994)
El último a la feria (San José de Costa Rica: EDUCA ,1995)
Oración inconclusa (Havana: Unión, 2000)
Con raro olor a mundo: Primera antología (Havana: Unión, 2004)
Actas de medianoche I (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 2006)
Actas de medianoche II (Soria: Diputación Provincial de Soria, 2007)
Tareas (Seville: Renacimiento, 2011)

Poetry Awards

Rodríguez Núñez has won numerous prizes for his poetry:

David Prize (Cuba, 1980)
Plural Prize (Mexico, 1983)
EDUCA Prize (Costa Rica, 1995)
Renacimiento Prize (Spain, 2000)
Fray Luis de León Prize (Spain 2005)
Leonor Prize (Spain, 2006)
Rincón de la Victoria Prize (Spain, 2010)

Poetry in Translation

Rodríguez Núñez’s Selected Poems has been translated into the following languages:

English (The Infinite’s Ash, trans. by Katherine Hedeen, London: Arc Publications, 2008)
French (L’étrange odeur du monde, trans. by Jean Portante, Paris: L’Oreille du Loup, 2011)
Italian (L’ultimo alla fiera, trans. by Emilio Coco, Foggia: Sentieri Meridiani, 2011)
Swedish (Världen ryms i en alexandrin, trans. by Losse Soderberg, Malmö: Aura Latina, 2011)

A wide selection of his poetry has also been translated into Dutch, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian and Slovenian.

Cultural Journalism

During the eighties Rodríguez Núñez wrote for and was the editor of El Caimán Barbudo, one of Cuba’s leading cultural magazines, where he published dozens articles on literature and film. A selection of his interviews with Hispanic poets appears in La poesía sirve para todo (Havana: Unión, 2008).

He is currently the assistant director of the Mexican cultural journal, La Otra.

Literary Criticism

Rodríguez Núñez has compiled three influential anthologies that have defined his poetic generation:

Cuba: En su lugar la poesía (Mexico: U Autónoma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco, 1982)
Usted es la culpable: Nueva poesía cubana (Havana: Editora Abril, 1985)
El pasado del cielo: La nueva y novísima poesía cubana (Medellín: Alejandría Editores, 1994)

His book-length study on Gabriel García Márquez’s non-fiction, Cien años de solidaridad (Havana: Unión, 1986) was awarded the Enrique José Varona Prize in 1986.

Rodríguez Núñez has published various critical editions, introductions, and essays on Spanish American poets including:

Oh, smog: Antología poética. [with Katherine M. Hedeen]. By Juan Calzadilla. (Havana: Arte y Literatura, 2008)
Poesía. By Francisco Urondo. (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 2006)
Oda a Rubén Darío: Poemas selectos. By José Coronel Urtecho. (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2005)
La soledad de América Latina: Escritos sobre arte y literatura, 1948-1988. By Gabriel García Márquez. (Havana: Arte y Literatura, 1989)
Cinco puntos cardinales. By Z. Valdés, J. A. Mazzotti, E. Llanos Melussa, J. R. Saravia and A. Desiderato. (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 1989)
País secreto. By Juan Manuel Roca. (Havana: Casa de las Américas, 1987)

Translation

Rodríguez Núñez is also a translator.

From Spanish into English, titles include:

Esto sucede cuando el corazón de una mujer se rompe. By Margaret Randall. (Madrid: Hiperion, 1999),
El silo: Una sinfonía pastoral. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By John Kinsella. (Havana: Arte y Literatura, 2005)
América o el resplandor. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By John Kinsella. (Havana: Torre de Letras, 2006)
La vida incesante y otros poemas. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Mark Strand. (Mexico: El tucán de Virginia, 2011)

From Spanish into English:

The Poems of Sidney West. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Juan Gelman. (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2009)
Diary with No Subject. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Juan Calzadilla. (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2009)
Garden of Silica. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Ida Vitale. (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2010)
Blue Coyote with Guitar. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Juan Bañuelos. (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2010)
The Bridges. [with Katherine Hedeen]. By Fayad Jamís. (Cambridge: Salt Publishing 2011)

He is an Associate Editor for Salt Publishing’s Earthwork’s Series of Spanish American Poetry in Translation.