SOURCE: Galeano, Juan Carlos. Review of The Doubtful Strait, by Ernesto Cardenal. Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 21, no. 2 (summer 1997): 512–15.

In the following review, Galeano describes The Doubtful Strait as an epic poem of Latin America's early colonial history that offers a moral lesson regarding contemporary social struggles.

The English speaking public, especially Americans, have been informed through TV and newspapers of the political events in Nicaragua and its neighbors without knowing much about the countries' past, particularly about the first years of the Spanish presence in Central America. Cardenal, a Nicaraguan poet, now translated into English by Lyons, gives voice to those distant times. Like chroniclers of the early days, in this epic poem Cardenal has gathered stories to shape into his own version of the events.

The title, The Doubtful Strait, which is suggestive even today, refers to the erroneous belief of the first Spaniards that a...