Book Tour: Poets Ghassan Zaqtan and Fady Joudah across America
Leading Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan and fellow award-winning poet and translator Fady Joudah are scheduled to visit 15 U.S. venues during October in support of Joudah’s critically acclaimed translation of Zaqtan’s work Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems.
Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems was published earlier this year as a volume in Yale University Press’s Margellos World Republic of Letters series – a series that aims to transcend the boundaries of language by making literary works from around the globe available in English.
With the poems in this volume, Zaqtan illuminates what Arabic poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular is capable of. Departing from the lush aesthetics of such celebrated predecessors as Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis, Zaqtan’s daily, delicate narrative, whirling catalogues, and at times austere aesthetics represent a new trajectory, a significant leap for young Arabic poets today.
Below is the author/translator tour schedule for this fall. Check back here or the Margellos WRL Facebook page for more updates in October!
Monday, October 1, 2012
8 Main Street, Amherst, MA
8:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing
Hosted by the Creative Writing Center at Amherst College
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Rethinking Translation Seminar
Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, Barker 133
6:00 PM Reading and Discussion
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Boston University
The BU Castle, 225 Bay State Road, Boston MA
12-2 PM Conversation & Poetry Reading
Lunch will be served before and during the talk
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Mandel Center for Humanities, Room 303 (The Reading Room)
Waltham, MA
5:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing
Monday, October 8, 2012
Scripps College
Hampton Room, Malott Commons,
Scripps College, Claremont, CA
7:15 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
12 -1 PM Class visit to Introduction to Creative Writing, CBA 4.124
7 PM
Poetry reading (with Fady Joudah), UTC 3.124,
8:30 PM Reception
Monday, October 15, 2012
Yale University
Whitney Humanities Center, Room 208
New Haven, CT
5:00 PM Poetry Reading
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
New York State Writers Institute • SUNY Albany
4:15 PM Informal Q&A with students
8:00 PM Poetry Reading
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Asian American Writers Workshop NY
110-112 West 27th St, NYC
7:00 PM Translation Night at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop
Headliners: Fady Joudah and Ghassan Zaqtan; other participants: Jeffrey Yang, Sinan Antoon, and Susan Bernofsky
Thursday, October 18, 2012
New York University
The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
(The Richard Ettinghausen Library at the Hagop Kevorkian Center)
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM, 50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan St
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Columbia University
8:00 PM, Room 509, Knox Hall
606 W 122nd Street, New York
Friday, October 19, 2012
Georgetown University
Lannan Center Conference Room / New North 408
Noon to 2:00 PM
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Westmont College
Winter Hall 210, Campus of Westmont College, Santa Barbara
4:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing
Thursday, October 25, 2012
University of California Los Angeles
Exact Location TBD, Campus of UCLA, Los Angeles
3:00 PM Poetry Reading
Monday, October 29, 2012
Rice University/University of Houston
UH / Rice University Visiting Writers Series
Honors Commons
5:30 PM Poetry Reading
