Jorge Santiago Perednik (1952-2011)

Jorge Santiago Perednik (1952-2011) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An influential poet and literary critic, he was also a publisher and a translator of English and American poetry. He founded several literary journals, two of the most influential being XUL and Deriva. The former was an important poetry journal that started publishing during Argentina’s last military dictatorship in 1980; it continued until 1997 with the printing of its 12th issue. As a journal, XUL provided regular compilations of some the most innovative poetry of its time. The journal was also one of Argentina’s best sources of new critical writing.  It was dedicated to publishing the most diverse poetics within the experimental tradition. Perednik's work as a poet and editor reflected his interest in many of the poetics included in the journal: visual poetry; John Cage’s mesostics; sound and performative texts--along with the most serious experimental works in Spanish American poetry. Perednik’s writing was primarily associated with his always expanding interest in exploring language and its relation to poetry rather than with any particular literary school.

 He had a long career as a teacher and through time became an important interlocutor for multiple generations of poets. His reading of American poetry became the departure point for some of the most striking Spanish translations of poets such as T. S. Eliot, e. e. cummmings and Charles Olson. In the 1990s, he developed a series of editorial projects with Mexican and American poets. His poetry books include: Los mil micos (1978), El cuerpo del horror (1981), El Shock de los Lender (1986),  El fin de no (1991), El gran derrapador (2002), La querella de los gustos (2007) among others.

Sources:
Electronic editon of XUL:

English language version of texts published in the journal:
The XUL Reader

A one hour interview and reading  at PennSound.

Molly Weigel's translaiton of The Shock of the Lenders is forthcoming from Action Books in Spring. The XUL reader publication of the "Main Fragment" from the poem is here.

videos at PennSound Livon-Grosman page