Odetta in Babylon and the Canada Express

Translated by Gregorio Kohon with Toni Griffiths

Introduction by Gwen MacKeith Bearing the unmistakable imprint of its time, as a voice in a chorus of writers from the counterculture of 1960s Argentina, Gregorio Kohon’s celebrated 1968 narrative poem is a masterful tale of a life lived on the edge, a transient life of odd jobs, moving around, impermanent homes, shared rooms, crashed parties, whole nights spent in bars and cafés, sleeping rough, surviving from one moment to the next. Through the protagonist’s anchorless lifestyle we encounter weird, haunting and ubiquitous characters who exist on the margins of society. Inferior social and economic positions are given special focus and special status. We bear witness to the people of an underworld – mad-men, prostitutes, spiritualists, the suicidal – and we hear what they have to say. There is flight and escape but the escape is as much psychical as physical, through altered states of mind brought on by the heady mix of sex, alcohol, marijuana – and by the power of music.

-- Publisher: Parthian Books