César Vallejo is one the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His first publication, in his native Peru, was a book called "The Black Heralds", a fine collection of lyric poems in a largely symbolist style. This was followed by the book by which he is best known, "Trilce" (1922), which has become one of the monuments of the Hispanic 'vanguardia'. After "Trilce", now resident in Europe, Vallejo wrote stories, essays, a novel, and several plays, but did not collect any of his subsequent poems for book publication. Since his death, these poems have usually been referred to as the "Poemas humanos" after the title of one of the posthumous volumes.
This Selected Poems draws on both of the volumes published by Shearsman Books in 2005: "Trilce" and the "Complete Later Poems 1923-1938", and adds to this selection a group of early poems from "The Black Heralds", thus giving an overview of the author's career and a sample of the whole range of his remarkable work.

The translations are by the prize-winning Irish poet-translator, Michael Smith, and the Peruvian scholar, Valentino Gianuzzi.