Julián del Casal holds a prominent place among the Spanish American writers who laid the foundation for the cultural and literary changes that came to be known as modernismo. In Spanish American literary histories, modernismo is the term used to describe the period from the 1880s to the early years of the twentieth century, a period of change and innovation in the literatures of the Spanish-speaking world. Casal's work has been an enduring presence in the art and literature of Cuba. Moreover, his life and work have been studied and admired by generations of readers and critics in Latin America and beyond. In Casal's work the relationship between words and image is a recurring topic. There is also a preoccupation with the frailty and mortality of the human body and with the relationship between desire and physical decay. At a time when progress and profit at...