Following years of isolation brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic, in the shadow of horrific violence unleashed by the Russian military in Ukraine, the calling of poets and translators to create communities of resistance and hope across all borders is more urgent than ever. The PEN/Penn Your Language My Ear project is in service of that goal, granting Anglophone and Russophone audiences access to voices—many of which are subject to interdiction and censorship in their own countries, and banning and shaming in other countries—that are creating a space for commonalities of struggle and a future world of peace to emerge.

Taking place in Yerevan with the support of PEN Armenia, the project brings poets and writers together to translate both contemporary Russian poetry into English (2022) and contemporary American poetry into Russian (2023). The poetry and corresponding translations from the convenings in 2022 and 2023 will be published as a single anthology by Deep Vellum, the largest publisher of literature in translation in the United States, based in Dallas, Texas.

The PEN/Penn Your Language My Ear program is a fusion and extension of the University of Pennsylvania’s Your Language My Ear translation symposium and of a pilot project from PEN America’s Writers in Dialogue program. In 2011, 2015, and 2019, the University of Pennsylvania held translation symposia where Russian and American poets—along with American scholars, translators, and poetry students—jointly translated texts from Russian into English and vice versa. PEN America’s 2020 pilot project paired seven Russian poets with seven U.S. translators who worked on texts over a series of online workshops and meetings, resulting in the publication of the anthology Verses on the Vanguard: Russian Poetry Today (Deep Vellum, 2022).

Poets and Translators Participating in 2023

Meet the 2023 Participants »

Poets

Ahmad Almallah • Jean Day • Mónica de la Torre • Kay Gabriel • Eugene Ostashvesky • Sawako Nakayasu • Timmy Straw

Translators

Luba Golburt • Igor Gulin • Yulia Kim • Tatiana Krasilnikova • Maria Malinovskaya • Lev Oborin • Ivan Sokolov • Alexander Zapol

Poets and Translators Participating in 2022

Meet the 2022 Participants »

Poets

Egana Dzhabbarova • Igor Gulin • Ruthie Jenrbekova • Maria Malinovskaya • Ramil Niyazov • Dinara Rasuleva • Konstantin Shavlovsky • Evgeniya Suslova • Ekaterina Zakharkiv • Sergey Zavyalov

Translators

Elina Alter • Catherine Ciepiela • Eugene Ostashvesky • Timmy Straw • Venya Gushchin • Bela Shayevich • Hilah Kohen • D. Brian Kim • Elaine Wilson

Expert Group

Meet the Expert Group »

Polina Barskova • Mark Lipovetsky • Lev Oborin • Kevin M. F. Platt • Polina Sadovskaya • Alexander Skidan • Matvei Yankelevich

The Russophone Literature of Resistance

“The Russophone Literature of Resistance,” guest-edited by Mark Lipovetsky and Kevin M. F. Platt, headlines the March 2023 issue of World Literature Today. The eight writers included in the cover feature all oppose the Russian Federation’s current regime, whether from inside the country or beyond its borders.

Sergey Zavyalov’s ‘Four Good News Stories’

Sergey Zavyalov’s “Four Good News Stories” was translated collectively by a group of 10 translators in the presence of the poet during the Your Language My Ear colloquium. The piece was published in Jacket2 with an introduction written by coordinating translator Eugene Ostashevsky.

Fragments from Igor Gulin’s ‘Lil Loaf of Bread’

Selected writing and fragments from Igor Gulin’s long poem ‘Lil Loaf of Bread’ were translated collectively by 11 translators as part of the Your Language My Ear colloquium. Gulin’s writing appeared in Annulet’s Issue (5), published in the spring of 2023.

Translating Russophone poetry of resistance into English

Gathering in an Armenian hotel perched on the edge of a ravine overlooking a Soviet-era football stadium, a group of Russian-language poets and American translators and scholars came together last fall to participate in a poetry translation symposium.