[VIRTUAL] Winter WiT: Women in Translation Reading Series (Session 1)

The words, "Winter Wit: Women in Translation Reading Series. Session 1," in front of a stack of books.

Moderator: Katherine E. Young
Olena Jennings (translator) and Iryna Shuvalova (Ukrainian)
Samantha Schnee (translator) and Carmen Boullosa (Spanish)
Marcela Sulak (translator) and Sharron Hass (Hebrew)
Jayde Will (translator) and Ligija Purinaša (Latgalian)

WATCH THE READING HERE


Moderator

Katherine E Young headshotKatherine E. Young is the author of Woman Drinking Absinthe and Day of the Border Guards. She has translated Anna Starobinets’ memoir Look at Him, fiction by Akram Aylisli, and numerous Russophone poets. Young, a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow, served as the inaugural poet laureate for Arlington, Virginia.

Panelists

Carmen Boullosa headshotCarmen Boullosa is a Mexican author of novels, poems, plays, and essays; prize recipient (Villaurrutia and Ibargüengoitia in Mexico, Anna Seghers and LiBeratur in Germany, Café Gijón and Casa de América in Spain, among others); and a Guggenheim and a Cullman Center Fellow. She teaches at Macaulay Honors College.

Sharron Hass headshotSharron Hass has published The Day After: An Essay on Sophocles’ Farewell to Poetry and six poetry collections, from the 1997 cult-classic The Mountain Mother is Gone to The Rake (2021). She’s won Israel’s most prestigious honors, including the Prime Minister’s, the Bialik, the Dolitsky, and the Amichai poetry prizes.

Olena Jennings headshotOlena Jennings translated the poetry collection Pray to the Empty Wells (Lost Horse Press) in collaboration with author Iryna Shuvalova. Her translation of Vasyl Makhno’s poetry collection Paper Bridge is forthcoming from Plamen Press. Her novel Temporary Shelter was released from Cervena Barva Press in 2021.

Ligija Purinaša headshotLigija Purinaša is a Latgalian poet. Her collection Sīvīte received a Latgalian Culture Award and was shortlisted for the 2020 Latvian Literature Award for Best Debut. Her work features in The Last Model, an anthology of three Latgalian poets. She heads the MARTA Resource Center for Women in Rēzekne, Latvia.

Samantha SchneeSamantha Schnee headshot is the founding editor of Words Without Borders. Her translation of Carmen Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize. Schnee’s translation of Boullosa’s The Book of Anna was published in 2020, and her translation of Boullosa’s El libro de Eva will be published in 2022.

Iryna Shuvalova headshotIryna Shuvalova has authored five award-winning poetry collections, including Pray to the Empty Wells (Lost Horse Press), and co-edited the first anthology of queer writing in Ukraine. Her stoneorchardwoods («kamin’sadlis») was named poetry book of the year in Ukraine in 2020. Born in Kyiv, she now lives in Nanjing, China.

Marcela Sulak headshotMarcela Sulak most recently published City of Sky Papers and the memoir Mouth Full of Seeds. An NEA Translation Fellow and 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation nominee, Sulak has translated five poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.

Jayde Will headshotJayde Will is a writer and translator. Recent translations include Alberts Bels’s novel Insomnia (Parthian Books, 2020) and Arvis Viguls’s poetry collection They (Valley Press, 2020). His poetry, short stories, and essays about Baltic literatures can be found in Words Without Borders, In Other Words, Vilnius Review, and Panel Magazine.