THE SPANISH translation of the latest book of poems by Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney was launched at the Mexican embassy in Dublin last night.
Hosting the event, Mexico's ambassador to Ireland Carlos García de Alba said he was privileged to launch Cadena Humana, the translation in Spanish of Heaney's book of poetry, Human Chain.
The translation was completed by Mexican poet Pura López-Columé.
López-Columé has translated previous work by Heaney and has also translated works by Samuel Beckett.
She described Heaney’s poems as having “a distant untranslatable voice, an untranslatable music”.
The ambassador described Heaney as a poet “who knows exactly where his poetry comes from: from his parents, previous generations, memories, shades, journeys, echoes, everything that forms a human chain . . . his human chain.”
The event opened with the singing of a traditional Mexican song, La Llorona,by a trio of Irish and Mexican singers.
Heaney then read seven of his poems and this was following by their reading in Spanish by López-Columé.
