First published in 1923, just before César Vallejo left Peru for France, Scales combines prose poems with short stories in a collection that exhibits all the exuberance of the author's early experimentalism. A follow-up to Vallejo's better-known work, Trilce, this radical collection shattered many aesthetic notions prevailing in Latin America and Europe. Intermingling romantic, symbolist, and avant-garde traditions, Scales is a poetic upending of prose narrative that blends Vallejo's intercontinental literary awareness with his commitment to political transformation. Written in part from Trujillo Central Jail, where Vallejo would endure some of the most terrifying moments of his life, Scales is also a testament of anguish and desperation, a series of meditations on justice and freedom, an exploration of the fantastic, and a confrontation with the threat of madness. Edited and translated from the Castilian by the scholar Joseph Mulligan, this first complete English translation, published here in bilingual format and accompanied by extensive archival documentation related to Vallejo's incarceration, this volume gives unprecedented access to one of the most inventive practitioners of Latin American literature in the twentieth century.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
This Edition
SCALES
CUNEIFORMS
Northwestern Wall
Antarctic Wall
East Wall
Doublewide Wall
Windowsill
Western Wall
WIND CHOIR
Beyond Life and Death
The Release
The Only Child
The Caynas
Mirtho
Wax
ESCALAS
CUNEIFORMES
Muro noroeste
Muro antártico
Muro este
Muro dobleancho
Alféizar
Muro occidental
CORO DE VIENTOS
Más allá de la vida y la muerte
Liberación
El unigénito
Los caynas
Mirtho
Cera
APPENDIX
"The Gravest Moment of My Life" by Andrés Echevarría
FROM TRÍLCE
II. "Time time"
XVIII. "Oh the four walls of the cell"
XX. "Flush with the beaten froth bulwarked"
XLI. "Death on its knees is spilling"
L. "Cerberus four times"
LVIII. "In the cell, in the solid"
LXI. "Tonight I get down from my horse"
Letter to La Reforma [August 12, 1920]
Letter to Óscar Imaña [October 26, 1920]
"Poet Vallejo Jailed in Trujillo," Gastón Roger
Letter to Gastón Roger [December 29, 1920]
"Poet Vallejo Imprisoned," Victor Raúl Haya de La Torre
Petition of Universidad de Trujillo Students
Petition of Trujillo Journalists
Letter to Óscar Imaña [February 12, 1921]
"Imprisonment of César Vallejo in Trujillo Jail"
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index