Motivos of Translation: Nicolas Guillen and Langston HughesFrom almost the very beginning of their long friendship, Nicolás Guillén and Langston Hughes have often been taken together as representatives of a self-conscious Afro-Cuban/Afro-American poetico-political project.1 Both poets' careers span the same period of time, roughly from the 1920s to the 1960s; both poets were held up as the voice of "the people" by their respective communities; and both, albeit in different ways and for different reasons, were emphatically radical in their political convictions. In short, both poets, at various times in their lives, considered themselves to be revolutionary poets of the masses.
Scott, William. "Motivos of Translation: Nicolas Guillen and Langston Hughes." CR: The New Centennial Review, vol. 5 no. 2, 2005, p. 35-71. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ncr.2005.0047.
