First published in 1933, and Slauerhoff's next-to-last volume, the poems in this collection center on Latin America and Portugal, and show a resignation or acquiescence not before seen in his poetry.

[2] Menno ter Braak praised Soleares highly in a review later collected in his In gesprek met de onzen (1946).

He identifies Slauerhoff's poetry's main theme as "the desperado, the person who feels like an outcast in a world he regards with a mixture of revulsion, desperate affection, and sarcasm" and remarks that with Slauerhoff this isn't a pose but an innate quality of the man.

Ter Braak cites "Vida triste", in which the speaker reflects on a love affair and begs for a way to kill his hellish passion, and finds in it Slauerhoff's continuing displeasure with existence and his fatal exile.

Though Slauerhoff had been critical of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, which awarded the prize, he did accept it, as a thank-you note written in Tangier on 2 July 1934.