R138. Double Lives: Writer/Translators

Room 400, Washington State Convention Center, Level 4
Thursday, February 27, 2014
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

Many creative writers are also accomplished translators, and they establish parallel careers; but the two pursuits, and the resulting publications, are rarely considered in tandem. Four writers discuss how translating affects their other creative work, how reimagining another writer’s fiction and poetry in English can influence one’s “own” writing in those genres, and how they move between and within their dual identities.


Participants

Moderator:

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words without Borders and the coeditor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry.

Lawrence Schimel is an award-winning author and anthologist writing in both Spanish and English who has published over one hundred books in many different genres. He is also the publisher of A Midsummer Night's Press. He is a Spanish to English translator in Madrid.

Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran and has lived in Trinidad, the UK, and the United States. Her publications include three collections of poetry, most recently, Keeping Time with Blue Hyacinths, an award-winning book of translations, Sin, and three anthologies. She teaches at Stonecoast MFA program.

Geoffrey Brock is a poet and a translator of Italian poetry and prose. He's the author of Weighing Light: Poems, the editor of The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry, and the translator of Cesare Pavese's Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950. He teaches at the University of Arkansas.

Idra Novey is the author of Exit, Civilian, selected by Patricia Smith for the 2011 National Poetry Series, and The Next Country. Her work has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered," in Poetry, and Slate. Her most recent translation is Clarice Lispector's The Passion According to G.H.

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