Poet, writer, and editor Frank Báez was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He began writing at 16, after his father read him a poem by Dylan Thomas, and joined a community of fledgling poets. He studied psychology at the Santo Domingo Institute of Technology and began a doctorate in the United States, but he chose to return to the Dominican Republic. Upon arriving home, he saw that many of the magazines and bookstores of the DR’s small literary scene had closed. With Giselle Rodríguez Cid, he opted to fill that gap by starting the digital poetry magazine Ping Pong, which became a virtual home for young writers around the Caribbean.
Báez has published eight poetry books, including Postales (2009), winner of the National Poetry Prize Salomé Ureña, and Desarmando la biblioteca de mi padre (2024), chosen as one of the books of the year by Casa Macondo. His short story collection Págales tú a los psicoanalistas (Editorial Ferilibro, 2007) won the Santo Domingo Book Fair First Prize. He is also the author of seven works of nonfiction.
Two of Báez’s poetry collections have been translated into English: Llegó el fin del mundo a mi barrio / The End of the World Came to My Neighborhood (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing, 2022) and Anoche soñé que era un DJ / Last Night I Dreamt I Was A DJ (Jai-Alai Books, 2014). His work has been translated into Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, German, and Slovenian as well. The 2020 Dutch translation of Anoche soñé que era un DJ was selected as one of the poetry collections of the year by Amsterdam’s NRC Handelsblad.
Báez was chief editor of Revista Global from 2013 through 2020. He also edited the anthologies Tejiendo Redes: El VIH visto a través de 14 activistas de Latinoamérica (Editor CLACSO, 2021) and On/Off-Shore: Poets of the Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora (Jai-Alai Books, 2022). With poet Homero Pumarol, he founded El Hombrecito, the DR’s first spoken-word band, which has released three albums and performed in several countries.
In 2017, Báez was the only poet included in the list Bogotá39-2017, recognizing Latin America’s best writers under 40. He received a Mellon High Impact Scholars fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023. He lives in Santo Domingo.
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More Frank Báez
Text: Read six poems by Báez at Poetry International
Video: Báez discusses his life in poetry at Versopolis
Text: Read Báez's poem "The Marilyn Monroe of Santo Domingo" at Words Without Borders
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Photo by Yolanda Castaño.