T177.
From the French but not from France: A Bilingual Reading of Francophone Poems, Sponsored by ALTA
Thursday, February 8, 2024
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
Many of the poets who claim the French language and handle it in expansive ways come from non-French cultural backgrounds. Five translators of francophone poetry will read and discuss their translations of poets from Syria, Haiti, Algeria, Palestine, and Côte d’Ivoire who use French (and, through translation, English) and inflect it with a wider diversity of non-French cultural, exilic, and decolonial concerns, among others.
Participants
Conor Bracken's poetry books include Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour and The Enemy of My Enemy Is Me. He is also the translator of Scorpionic Sun by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, and No Way in the Skin Without This Bloody Embrace, by Jean D'Amérique, a finalist for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
Nancy Naomi Carlson has authored thirteen titles (nine translations) and won the 2022 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. A BTBA and CLMP finalist, she received two NEA translation grants and was decorated with the French Academic Palms. An Infusion of Violets was named "New & Noteworthy" by the New York Times.
Hélène Cardona has authored three bilingual collections and five translations. A Goethe-Institut and Andalucía International University Fellow, she is the recipient of an Albertine and FACE Foundation Grant for The Abduction by Maram Al-Masri and a Hemingway Grant for Beyond Elsewhere by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac.
Todd Fredson is the author of the poetry collections Century Worm and The Crucifix-Blocks, and the translator of Tanella Boni's The future has an appointment with the dawn, as well as Josué Guébo’s My country, tonight and Think of Lampedusa. He is a 2018 NEA Translation Fellow.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is an award-winning translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world and the recipient of the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry in translation. He is the author of the book The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice.
