The Secret Wall

English translation of El Muro Secreto (1949), the first book of poetry by Argentinian poet, essayist and art critic Aldo Pellegrini (1903-1973). Pellegrini was the founder of the first surrealist group formed in the Spanish-speaking world, in 1926. He took part in journals like Ciclo, A Partir de Cero and Letra y Línea, associated with aesthetic innovation and the avant-garde, and was an early advocate of abstract art in his country. His translations of Artaud, Breton's Manifestos, the complete works of Lautréamont and his comprehensive, crucial Antología de la Poesía Surrealista en Lengua Francesa were published by his own pioneering imprint, Argonauta. Throughout the thirty-three poems that comprise this book, dream, love, desire and the nocturnal are the intransigent forces conjured to ignite the fire of imagination in the quest for the marvelous, "a great adventure in the unknown continents of language."