José Kozer was born in 1940 in Havana, Cuba, of Jewish parents who had emigrated from Poland and Czechoslovakia. He left his native land in 1960, lived in New York until 1997, when he retired as full Professor from Queens College, where he had taught Spanish and Latin American literature for thirty-two years. After living for two years in Spain, he then moved to Florida. His poetry has been translated into many languages, has been widely anthologised and has appeared in literary journals all over the world. His work is the subject of several master's and doctoral dissertations, and has been studied on many graduate and undergraduate courses. José Kozer was awarded the Premio de Poesía Iberoamericana Pablo Neruda (the Pablo Neruda Latin-American Poetry Prize) for 2013. Tokonoma was first published in Spain in 2011.