Octavo. 56pp. A moving selection of Akhmatova's (here translated as "Ajmatova") poetry. The recruitment of Akhmatova by the press is an odd one: Ediciones Vigía was sponsored by the Cuban Ministry of Culture under Castro, and Akhmatova's worked diligently to record and respond to the abuses of power in Stalin's Soviet Union. Castro was not sympathetic to Stalin specifically, but Ediciones Vigía had emerged from the wake of Cuba's great economic downturn ("The Special Period") and its aftereffects are here made palpable. The sampling of Akhmatova's poetry is here a response to that period, subtly voicing an anxiety that certain forms of communism - in Cuba, the USSR, or elsewhere - might lead to dictatorship and devastation. Translated by Juan Luis Hernández Milián. Bound in brown paper wrappers with collaged covers. Mild rubs to corners, else near fine.