Born in 1927 in Santiago de Chile to Jewish emigré parents, Rosenmann-Taub began writing when he was three and committed himself to his vocation at the age of seven. By then, too, he had already started the omnivorous reading, across many disciplines, that would give him an immense erudition. Also in early childhood, he began the formal musical education that would prepare him for a lifetime of accomplishment as a composer.

When he was just twenty-one, his first book – Cortejo y Epinicio (Cortege and Epinicion) – was published by the house of Cruz del Sur. In a country famous for its Nobel laureates, he was greeted as a new star. Chile’s leading literary critic, Alone, hailed the young author as a pioneer. This triumph was soon followed by another: the publication of Los Surcos Inundados (The Flooded Furrows), for which he received the Premio Municipal de Poesía (the Chilean equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry).

Fame had come to him unbidden; he had no interest in performing the rituals necessary to maintain it. Furthermore, he was overtaxed by the long days of private lessons he now gave in order to help support his extended family – a grueling round that did not prevent him from spending his nights writing poetry while subsisting on few hours’ sleep.

In the late 1970’s, five of his books appeared in small, handsome editions: El Cielo en la Fuente (The Sky in the Fountain), the first two volumes of Los Despojos del Sol (The Spoils of the Sun), a second edition of Cortejo y Epincio, and with Nahúm Kamenetzky, Al Rey su Trono (To the King His Throne). These books, now almost impossible to find, have become collector’s items.

He left his country in the early 1980s and has since lived in the United States, devoting himself to his artistic activities and giving private lessons and occasional lectures. Remaining far from the spotlight of public life, he has become a near-mythical figure in the world of Latin American letters.

Even long-time, enthusiastic admirers of Rosenmann-Taub’s poetry continue to be astonished by the range of his creative faculties. He is one of those rare protean artists whose genius extends to music and art as well as to poetry. Over the past two decades, not only has he written prolifically, he has also recorded a large number of his own piano compositions and produced hundreds of drawings. In 2000, Rosenmann-Taub assigned all of his existing and future work to the Corda Foundation, electing not to profit financially from its promotion and sale. Corda aims to bring the whole spectrum of his creativity to the world’s attention.