Books: Conversations with a Donkey

PLATERO AND I (218 pp.)—Juan Ramón Jiménez, translated by Eloïse Roach—University of Texas ($3.75).

PLATERO AND I (159 pp.)—Juan Ramón Jiménez, translated by William and Mary Roberts—Duschnes ($3.75).

When Juan Ramón Jiménez won the 1956 Nobel Prize for literature (TIME, Nov. 5, 1956), most Americans hearing the news wondered who on earth he was. The greatest living poet of the Spanish-speaking world had hardly been translated into English, and. except for students of Spanish literature, even the literarily enlightened only vaguely knew his name from anthologies. In Spain Poet Jiménez had kept aloof from political life, in 1936 had exiled himself...