Albán, Laureano (1942–)

Laureano Albán (b. 9 January 1942), Costa Rican poet. Born in Santa Cruz de Turrialba, Costa Rica, Albán is best known for the poetry he wrote after leaving Costa Rica for Spain in 1978. That is especially true of Herencia del otoño (1980; Autumn's Legacy, 1982) winner of Spain's coveted Adonais Prize for poetry and the Costa Rican Prize for literature. El viaje interminable (1983; The Endless Voyage, 1984) was awarded the First Prize of Hispanic Culture by the Ministry of Spanish Culture. Albán's dedication to poetry began at fifteen when he and the Costa Rican poet Jorge Debravo formed the Turrialba group. In the 1960s he created the Costa Rican Writers Circle, published his first book of poems, Poemas en cruz (1962), and went on to establish the transcendentalist literary movement with his wife, the poet Julieta Dobles, and two younger Costa Rican poets, Ronald Bonilla and Carlos Francisco Monge. His English translator, Frederick Fornoff, describes his view of poetry as "a vehicle through which the poet carries his audience beyond the limited, circumstantial nature of human experience to the world of transcendent intuition that is universally confirmable through and only through poetry." Alban's work has been translated into French and Hebrew as well as English. He published Infinita memoria de América in 1991 and Los nocturnos de Julieta the following year. In 1995 Alban published Encyclopedia of Wonders (Enciclopedia de maravillas), an encyclopedia on the history of literature written in poetry.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnoldo Mora Rodríguez, "La poesía religiosa de Laureano Albán," in Káñina 9, no. 1 (1985): 81-86.

Frederick Fornoff, "La poética de ausencia en Laureano Albán," and Amparo Amoros, "Una metafísica del mito originario: La poesía de Laureano Albán," in Iberoamericana 53 (1987): 138-139, 331-361.

Juan Manuel Marcos, "La poesía de Laureano Albán" in Hispanofila 32, no. 94 (1988): 69-77.

Additional Bibliography

Debravo, Jorge, and Erick Gil Salas. Poesía turrialbena, 1960–1999: Antología. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 2000.

                                         Ann GonzÁlez