Strange Houses

In conclusion something else should be mentioned that the reader may already have noticed. Millán spent a significant part of his exile in Canada —New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec— where, measured by the exacting standards applied to poetry in Chile, he produced texts of capital significance. He was involved in all of the major Chilean cultural initiatives in Canada. La ciudad was published in Montreal by Les Editions Maison Culturelle Quebec-Amerique Latine in 1979; it is perhaps the most important book ever published in Spanish in Quebec. Vida, a collection of his work in Spanish, was published by Ediciones Cordillera in Ottawa in 1984; both books found a broad echo in Chile. We believe that this collection of poems in English will belatedly do justice to a body of work that was largely produced in Canada; its artistic skill and human universality call for its dissemination in this country. (Jorge Elcheverry)