Street Children.

The Tragedy of Ycuá Bolaños.

This is a remarkable collection of poetry from a distinguished historian who has revealed what must have been a long smoldering artistic passion.  These beautiful poems tell two stories, that of the humanity that shapes Paraguay’s problems, hopes, and dreams, and that of Alain Saint-Saëns’s personal and professional journeys to a new land.  These poems are a moving insight into the author’s own life changes, and how they have been touched and often shaped by Paraguay’s turbulent, troubled, but profoundly human recent past.  Saint-Saëns’s poems reflect the knowledge of and sensitivity to domestic and international Paraguayan affairs of somebody who has lived in that country all his life.  There is no better introduction to Paraguay than these short works of art.

The first three poems of the book are severe, difficult to read both for the power of the topics addressed and the wonder of how the reader is brought to understand the impact on the poet of events charted.  The narratives are gripping in recounting the kidnapping, rape, and assassination of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former Paraguayan president Raúl Cubas; the violent lives of Asunción street children; and the events surrounding the tragic deaths of almost four hundred Paraguayans in a 2004 supermarket fire.  In the poem concerning this latter tragedy, “Ycuá Bolaños,” Saint-Saëns evokes Picasso’s Guernica in reminding readers of the politics at the root of all violence, but also in underlining how his poem – in form and function – draws brilliantly on the chaotic, horrible beauty of that Spanish Civil War era oeuvre.

The poems “El Nombre de su Padre” and “Ser Paraguayo Mereciste” draw the reader gently from the violent to the warmth of life’s beginnings and family.  Though sharper and more jarring “El Nombre de su Padre” evokes e. e. cummings’s “because i love you)last night” for its complex aesthetic, while Saint-Saëns brings readers an unexpected humorous touch in briefly presenting the politics of the Yaciretá dam and sometimes unhappy implications of international politics in the hands of politicians and diplomats.

In its combination of passion and hopefulness, Saint-Saëns’s writing is reminiscent of Ruben Darío’s “A Roosevelt” in his poem “Fernando,” a tribute to Paraguay’s new president but more than that, a multi-layered reflection on his own life and work, and what it means for the poet to have begun anew in Paraguay at a time of Paraguay’s own rebirth.

Cantos Paraguayos.  Poemas de libertad is a joy to read and heralds the emergence of a powerful new poetic voice.

David Sheinin

Professor of Latin American History, Trent University, Canada,

Académico Correspondiente,

Academia Nacional de la Historia de la República Argentina.

Review # 2:

Alain Saint-Saëns’s Cantos Paraguayos.  Poemas de libertad depict all the domestic problems that Paraguay is facing: escalating crime-wave, kidnapping, violence, poverty, social inequalities, and exploitation. Successive poems enable the reader to have a deep insight into the Paraguayan society:

- The first poem “Cecilia”, filled with strong and violent images, reflects the kidnapping, rape and assassination of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of former Paraguayan President Raúl Cubas. The poet invites the reader to use her memory to work on building a better country and compares Cecilia’s fate to the nation’s surge of angry violence.

- With the poem ‘Niños de la calle,’ we enter into a dangerous garden: the dramatic life of street children. Luis, like many other kids, is marginalized and begs to survive.  Deprived of education and of a stable family, he is compelled to live and die abused on the street, and his sad life is like winter, a harsh and pitiless season.

- ‘Ycuá Bolaños’ portrays an inhuman world, in which hundreds of people were left to die inside a blazing supermarket after security staff locked doors to prevent customers from running out without paying. The poet criticizes the greedy and insensitive owner of this supermarket, who only thought of his goods to the detriment of the victims, denounces the lack of human justice, and implicitly warns of the wrath of God.

- For the first time in more than sixty years, Paraguay has a president from an opposition party, the centre-left former Roman Catholic bishop, Fernando Lugo, ‘Bishop of the Poors.’ The tone of Alain Saint-Saëns’s poem, ‘Fernando,’ is wise, optimistic, and we believe in democracy and a new light for Paraguay. 

Alain Saint-Saëns has opened the door of a garden, both cruel and hopeful, in which devils and angels are struggling against one another.

With Alain Saint-Saëns’s poems, we enter into a turbulent Paraguay,

where hopes and dreams of a better life pave the way

 to the young democracy.

Marie Laure Rosita De Shazer

Writer, Poet, and Professor of Spanish and Chinese, Illinois.