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Cancula / Dog Days

Poems
Brief Description
"In this brilliant bilingual anthology, William Archila creates a powerful and fiery poetics of exile, war, and, ultimately and brilliantly, survival."—Daniel Borzutzky, National Book Award winner From war-torn El Salvador to the streets of LA, Cancula / Dog Days is a bold, bilingual collection chronicling exile,... Read More
Format: Hardback
$9000

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"In this brilliant bilingual anthology, William Archila creates a powerful and fiery poetics of exile, war, and, ultimately and brilliantly, survival."—Daniel Borzutzky, National Book Award winner

From war-torn El Salvador to the streets of LA, Cancula / Dog Days is a bold, bilingual collection chronicling exile, memory, and resilience across borders.

William Archila's Cancula / Dog Days is a bilingual selection of his first two books of poetry, The Art of Exile and The Gravedigger's Archaeology, two collections that chart the emergence of a newcomer in the chorus of Latin Poetry. Cancula, which means "dog days" in English, takes the reader on a poignant journey from the unrest in El Salvador in the 1980s to the urban landscape of the US immigrant, revealing the turmoil and memory of the disempowered, the impoverished, and the displaced who struggle back home in Central America.

In lyrical and often harrowing language, Archila unearths the vestiges of war and the exile's return in an elegy, the fragments of a myth, or a jazz riff. They come together like the bilateral symmetry of a volcano, and the result is the introduction to Archila's poetry for the Spanish reader.

"En esta brillante antología bilingüe, William Archila crea una poética poderosa y apasionada del exilio, la guerra y, en última instancia y con maestría, la supervivencia."—Daniel Borzutzky, ganador del National Book Award

Desde un El Salvador devastado por la guerra hasta las calles de Los Ángeles, Cancula / Dog Days es una antología bilingüe audaz, que narra el exilio, la memoria y la resiliencia a través de las fronteras.

Cancula / Dog Days de William Archila es una selección bilingüe de sus dos primeros libros de poesía, El arte del exilio y La arqueología del sepulturero, dos poemarios que marcan el surgimiento de un nuevo referente en la poesía latina. Dog Days, que significa "cáncula", lleva al lector a través de un viaje conmovedor desde la agitación en El Salvador en la década de 1980 hasta el paisaje urbano del inmigrante en los Estados Unidos, revelando la angustia y la memoria de los marginados, los empobrecidos y los desplazados, que luchan por volver a su hogar en Centroamérica.

Con un lenguaje lírico y a menudo desgarrador, Archila desentierra los vestigios de la guerra y el regreso del exiliado en una elegía, en los fragmentos de un mito o en un riff de jazz. Estos se conjugan como la simetría de un volcán, y el resultado es la presentación de la poesía de Archila al lector en español.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781636284552

Publisher: Red Hen Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 25 June 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Red Hen Press

Edition: Spanish and English

Illustration: Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Translated by Mario Zetino

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 228.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 192

About the Author

William Archila, born in El Salvador,is the author of the most recent publications Cancula/Dog Days: Selected Poems 2009-2013 and S is For, winner of the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is also the author of The Art of Exile and The Gravedigger's Archaeology. He was awarded the 2023 Jack Hazard fellowship. He has been published in Poetry magazine, The American Poetry Review, AGNI, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, TriQuarterly, and the anthology Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. He is an associate editor at Ta Chucha Press. Born in El Salvador, he now lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land.

Mario Zetinois a Salvadoran poet, translator, and scholar. He has published five poetry collections and has edited three anthologies of Salvadoran poetry. His most recent work is the collectionEl corazn del universo(The Heart of the Universe. KDP, 2025). His work has been published in anthologies such asSegundo ndice antolgico de la poesa salvadoreaand in magazines such asLa Zebra,Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos,The Los Angeles Review, andLatino Book Review. In 2016, he was a resident writer in the Hispanic Writers Week of UMass Boston. He holds a degree in Spanish from Universidad de El Salvador and has published several papers on literary studies.

Las publicaciones ms recientes de William Archila incluyen Cancula/Dog Days: Antologa Poetica 2009-2013 y S is for, que recibi el 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Ha publicado los poemarios The Art of Exile y The Gravedigger's Archaeology. En 2023 fue galardonado con la beca Jack Hazard. Su trabajo ha sido publicado en revistas como Poetry, The American Poetry Review, AGNI, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, TriQuarterly; y en la antologa Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. Es editor asociado de Ta Chucha Press. Reside en Los ngeles, en territorio Tongva.

Mario Zetino es un poeta, traductor y academico salvadoreo. Ha publicado cinco poemarios y ha compilado tres antologas de poesa salvadorea. Su libro ms reciente esEl corazn del universo(KDP, 2025). Su trabajo ha sido publicado en antologas comoSegundo ndice antolgico de la poesa salvadoreay en revistas comoLa Zebra,Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos,The Los Angeles ReviewyLatino Book Review. En 2016, fue escritor residente en la Hispanic Writers Week de la UMass Boston. Es Licenciado en Letras por la Universidad de El Salvador. Ha publicado diversos artculos sobre estudios literarios.

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