Eugenio Montejo was born in Caracas (Venezuela) in 1938. His poetry books are Élegos (1967), Death and Memory (1972), Some Words (1976), Terredad (1978), Absolute Tropic (1982). A selection of these five books plus the 1986 collection of poems that gave the title to the volume are included in the anthology Alphabet of the World (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1988, reissued and expanded in 2005). From 1997 his book of poems Adiós to the XX century (Renaissance) dates. In 1999 he published in Pre-Textos Partitura de la cicada, in 2002 Papiros amorosos, and in 2006 Fábula del scribe. He has also published volumes of essays: The Oblique Window (1974) and The White Workshop (1983). He is also the author of several texts of heteronymic writing, among which stand out the notebook of Blas Coll (1981) and the ax of silk, by Tomás Linden (1996), both contents, along with other texts, in the present anthology.