F219.
Cambodian Poetry, Prose, and Translation Today
Friday, March 10, 2023
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
The destruction of much of Cambodia's classical and contemporary literature occurred during the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. Tens of thousands of writers, artists, teachers, and intellectuals were systematically murdered. This reading will present the literature that has been recovered as well as the writing of the Cambodian diaspora: songs, poetry, and folktales in brand-new translations; and nonfiction and poetry by young and emerging authors.
Participants
Sharon May researched the Khmer Rouge regime and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University. She guest edited In the Shadow of Angkor: New Cambodian Writing; a Cambodian feature for Words without Borders; and Out of the Shadows of Angkor: Cambodian Literature through the Ages.
Sokunthary Svay is the author of Apsara in New York. She is based in New York City and has received fellowships from Poets House, American Opera Projects, Willow Books, and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is a doctoral candidate in English. Her first opera premiered at the Kennedy Center in January 2020.
Putsata Reang is a journalist and author of the debut memoir, Ma and Me. She is an alum of Hedgebrook, Kimmel Harding Nelson, and Mineral School residencies. Ma and Me released in May 2022 to multiple "Must Read" lists as well as earning starred reviews in major trade journals.
Trent Walker is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies and a lecturer in Religious Studies at Stanford. He has published widely on Khmer, Lao, Pali, Thai, and Vietnamese literature, and is the author of Until Nirvana’s Time and a coeditor of Out of the Shadows of Angkor.
Greg Santos is a poet, editor, and educator. He is the author of Ghost Face (DC Books, 2020) and other collections. He is the editor in chief of carte blanche magazine. He is an adoptee of Cambodian, Portuguese, and Spanish heritage. He lives in Montreal with his family.
