DAVID ROSENMANN-TAUB

1927 - 2023

ROSENMANN-TAUB-- David. David Rosenmann-Taub, author of more than twenty volumes of poetry, often described in his native Chile as a genius and a legend, passed away on July 11, 2023 at the age of 96. Armando Uribe, winner of Chile's Premio Nacional de Literatura, had called him "the most important and profound living poet of the entire Spanish language." He was also an extraordinary composer, pianist, and draftsman. "The beauty of a work lies in its dosage of timeless truth," he said, and his daily pursuit of that truth produced results that are shattering and consoling, forthright and astonishing. Born on May 3, 1927 to Jewish emigrant parents he adored, he began receiving lessons from his mother, Dora Taub, a piano virtuoso, at age two, and was already dictating poems at three. He first won critical acclaim in 1949, when he published Cortejo y Epinicio, the initial volume of a tetralogy he would elaborate over the course of his life, in which he distilled his sweeping knowledge of what it is to be human. He went to New York in 1974 to give lectures and later settled in this country. The only exception to his austere lifestyle was his personal library of some 50,000 books, covering his vast range of interests; even in old age, he said that he had come to the world to learn. Though he largely remained out of the public eye in order to devote himself to his work, he was always surrounded by cherished friends, to whom he gave of his wisdom with inexhaustible generosity. Among the personalities with whom he had significant interactions were Albert Camus, Witold Gombrowicz, Claudio Arrau, and Padre Alberto Hurtado. In 2000, the non-for-profit Corda Foundation was established to preserve and disseminate his many creations. The Foundation maintains a website about him.
https://davidrosenmann-taub.com
Translations and anthologies of his poetry have appeared in many countries, including the United States.