Now, more than ever, it is important to hear voices beyond the borders of the United States. Join us on April 9 at 7:00pm to hear guest translators Susanna Lang, Alex Niemi, and a chorus of other translators and poets read work from around the world. Hosted by Jesse Lee Kercheval and Lori DiPrete Brown.
Featured Translators:
Susanna Lang’s translation of poetry by Souad Labbize, My Soul Has No Corners, is available from Diálogos Books (2023), and a new collection by Labbize, Unfasten the silk of your silence, is now available from Éditions des Lisières (2025). Other translations include Words in Stone by Yves Bonnefoy (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976) and Baalbek by Nohad Salameh (L'Atelier du Grand Tétras, 2021). Her chapbook of original poems, Like This, appeared in 2023 from Unsolicited Books, and her third full-length collection, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published by Terrapin Books in 2017.
Alex Niemi is a writer and literary translator. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. In 2023, her translation of For the Shrew by Anna Glazova (Zephyr Press) won the AATSEEL Book Award and the Heldt Prize, both for best translation from a Slavic language. She is also the translator of Hekate by Anna Glazova (Toad Press) and The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books), as well as the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant (Dancing Girl Press). Her latest translation, The Endless Week by Laura Vazquez, is forthcoming from Dorothy, a publishing project in 2025.
Cohosts:
Jesse Lee Kercheval is a poet, writer, visual artist and translator. Her most recent poetry collections are I Want to Tell You (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023) and Un pez dorado no te sirve para nada/ A Goldfish Buys You Nothing (Editorial Yaugurú, Uruguay, 2023). Her translations include Love Poems by Idea Vilariño and The Invisible Bridge: Selected Poems of Circe Maia (University of Pittsburgh Press). She is the Zona Gale Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lori DiPrete Brown works to advance global health and human rights, with language, translation and literature playing an integral role in her way of understanding the world. She is a co-editor of the bilingual anthology Montanas, and Three or Four Rios (University of Guadalajara Press), and the author of Caminata, a novel based on her Peace Corps service in Honduras. Currently she is translating a collection of indigenous poetry from Oaxaca, by Celerina Sánchez (Ñuu Savi). DiPrete Brown teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds degrees from Yale College, the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Divinity School.