ThoughtGallery.org > Nordic Literature in Translation: Damascus, Atlantis with Marie Silkeberg, Kelsi Vanada, & David Rothernberg

Nordic Literature in Translation: Damascus, Atlantis with Marie Silkeberg, Kelsi Vanada, & David Rothernberg

On April 23, join us for a Nordic Literature in Translation event with author Marie Silkeberg and translator Kelsi Vanada on Silkeberg’s 2021 book Damascus, Atlantis, which was recently longlisted for the 2022 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. With moderator David Rothenberg, the publisher of  Terra Nova Press, they’ll discuss Silkeberg’s poetry collection and Vanada’s translation of her works, for which Vanada won ASF’s  Nadia Christensen Translation Prize in 2018.

Silkeberg has been a major voice in Swedish poetry since the early 1990s. In these poems, translated by Kelsi Vanada and drawn from her two most recent collections, Atlantis and Till Damaskus (written with Ghayath Almadhoun, whose poems from the collection were published in English translation as Adrenalin), she tackles some of the most wrenching events of recent decades—globalization, the escalating war in Syria, and its ongoing aftermath and consequences. The speakers of these poems live in a reality informed by these events and by an older European history. Taking the standpoint of listener and observer forced to confront the horrors in present tense, the poems question how we share the pain of others, and how the meeting between different experiences of trauma influences language. The poems are matched with stills from Silkeberg’s poetry films, putting word and image in dialogue to explore ruins, cityscapes, the echoes of history, all into the depth of language’s power.

In today’s event, Silkeberg and Vanada will read from and discuss the writing, translation, and publication with images of this book which has been called “beautiful, breathtakingly threatening, cruel as only love can be” (Kristian Lundberg, Aftonbladet) with Rothenberg.

Now in its 43rd year, ASF’s Annual Translation Competition awards prizes for outstanding translations of poetry, fiction, drama, or literary prose written by a 20th- or 21st-century Nordic author. The Nadia Christensen Prize recognizes an outstanding translation of a literary text from a Nordic language into the English.

This event will take place as a Zoom webinar; please ask questions in the chat or send them in advance to  [email protected]. Registration is required; please sign up at the link. This conversation will be recorded and available later to stream on our Virtual Programming page and on our YouTube channel.











When: Sat., Apr. 23, 2022 at 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

On April 23, join us for a Nordic Literature in Translation event with author Marie Silkeberg and translator Kelsi Vanada on Silkeberg’s 2021 book Damascus, Atlantis, which was recently longlisted for the 2022 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. With moderator David Rothenberg, the publisher of  Terra Nova Press, they’ll discuss Silkeberg’s poetry collection and Vanada’s translation of her works, for which Vanada won ASF’s  Nadia Christensen Translation Prize in 2018.

Silkeberg has been a major voice in Swedish poetry since the early 1990s. In these poems, translated by Kelsi Vanada and drawn from her two most recent collections, Atlantis and Till Damaskus (written with Ghayath Almadhoun, whose poems from the collection were published in English translation as Adrenalin), she tackles some of the most wrenching events of recent decades—globalization, the escalating war in Syria, and its ongoing aftermath and consequences. The speakers of these poems live in a reality informed by these events and by an older European history. Taking the standpoint of listener and observer forced to confront the horrors in present tense, the poems question how we share the pain of others, and how the meeting between different experiences of trauma influences language. The poems are matched with stills from Silkeberg’s poetry films, putting word and image in dialogue to explore ruins, cityscapes, the echoes of history, all into the depth of language’s power.

In today’s event, Silkeberg and Vanada will read from and discuss the writing, translation, and publication with images of this book which has been called “beautiful, breathtakingly threatening, cruel as only love can be” (Kristian Lundberg, Aftonbladet) with Rothenberg.

Now in its 43rd year, ASF’s Annual Translation Competition awards prizes for outstanding translations of poetry, fiction, drama, or literary prose written by a 20th- or 21st-century Nordic author. The Nadia Christensen Prize recognizes an outstanding translation of a literary text from a Nordic language into the English.

This event will take place as a Zoom webinar; please ask questions in the chat or send them in advance to  [email protected]. Registration is required; please sign up at the link. This conversation will be recorded and available later to stream on our Virtual Programming page and on our YouTube channel.

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