Conversations with Anon.
Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered.
Please note that access will not be permitted 15 minutes after the start of the event.
This event will be held in English.
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The poets Alice Oswald and Maria Stepanova, both former Institute Fellows, will be in conversation on the occasion of the publication of Alice Oswald’s new book, Rhapsody: A Manifesto, and Maria Stepanova’s latest novel The Disappearing Act, translated by Sasha Dugdale. The conversation will be moderated by poet Golan Haji.
Alice Oswald lives in Devon and has worked as a gardener and poet. She has a particular interest in oral and anonymous poetry and has published three anthologies and seven poetry collections, including Dart, Memorial, and Falling Awake. Among her distinctions are the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. From 2019 to 2023, she was the Oxford Professor in Poetry.
Maria Stepanova is a poet, essayist and editor, the recipient of several Russian and international literary awards, including the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding (2023). Her poems have been translated into a number of languages, including English, German, French, Italian, and Swedish. Her documentary novel Pamiati pamiati (In Memory of Memory) came out in Russian in November 2017 and received the Russian Big Book Prize in December 2018. Since 2022 Stepanova is based in Berlin.
Golan Haji is a Syrian-Kurdish poet, essayist and translator. He studied medicine at the University of Damascus. He writes in Arabic and translates from English, French and Kurdish (Kurmanji). His poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and his poetry and essays have appeared in various magazines and anthologies in the Arab world and worldwide, including the Paris Review, Agni, Prairie Schooner, Europe, Iowa International Writing Program publications and The Penguin Book of The Prose Poem. Haji has participated in poetry festivals all over the world. He has worked with several visual artists and published artist books, some of which were exhibited at the 2015 Venice Biennale. He currently lives in France.
This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
