3rd gay poetry translation workshop in Slovenia
7 – 14 June 2008

Organised by Centre for Slovenian Literature and the Literature Across Frontiers in cooperation with the Living Literature Festival in Ljubljana

Participating poets and languages they write in

Andras Gerevich, Hungarian
Christopher Whyte, Scottish Gaelic/English
Dmitry Kuzmin, Rusian
Gašper Malej, Slovenian
Lawrence Schimel, Spanish/English
Valery Ledenyov, Rusian

Workshop facilitator
Brane Mozetič, Center for Slovenian Literature

Programme
Saturday, 7 June
arrivals in Ljubljana, transfer to Fiesa (near Piran) in South-Western Slovenia

Sunday 8 June - Wednesday 11 June
introductory session, plan workshop schedule, readings of own work, discussion about the poems participants have selected, work individually or with the author of poems you are translating, impromptu readings...

Thursday 12 June
Morning – individual work
Afternoon – finalization of translations
7 p.m. – Reading at Library in Izola

Friday 13 June
Morning - departure for Ljubljana, settle in hotel
Afternoon – sightseeing
8 p.m. - Reading at Festival Živa književnost / Living Literature Festival

Saturday 14 June – free time in Ljubljana and departures

Contacts
Brane Mozetič, Centre for Slovenian Literature
Mobile phone +386 40206631; brane.mozetic@guest.arnes.si

Participants

Andras Gerevich was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1976. First he graduated with a degree in English Literature from the Eötvös University of Budapest (ELTE), then went on to study Creative Writing at Dartmouth College in the US on a Fulbright Scholarship. His third degree is in Screenwriting from the National Film School in Britain. Now working on his third volume of poems, he has published widely in journals in his native Hungarian and his work has been translated into several languages. Among his many activities he is the President of the József Attila Circle (JAK), the association of young Hungarian writers. He is also a commissioning editor for Chroma, the London based literary and arts journal, and poetry editor of Kalligram, a Hungarian literary monthly. He has written a number of international prize-winning short films produced in London, and at the moment he is working on both film and theatre projects.

Christopher Whyte was born in Glasgow in 1952. From 1973 to 1985 he lived in Italy and from 1990 to 2005 was on the staff of the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. Today he lives in Budapest and writes full time. Of his four novels in English, two have received Scottish Arts Council awards. His first collection of poems in Gaelic Uirsgeul / Myth (1991) won a Saltire prize. An Tràth Duilich / The Difficult Time followed in 2002. Dealbh Athar / Portrait of a Father will appear in Gaelic and Irish in 2008, to be followed in 2009 by a collected volume, An Daolag Shìonach / The Chinese Beetle. Christopher is also the author of Modern Scottish Poetry (2004) and the editor of Gendering the Nation (1995). He has translated poetry from a wide range of languages into both English and Gaelic.
www.aboutchristopherwhyte.com

Dmitri Kuzmin (b.1968) graduated from Moscow State University for Pedagogics (philological dept.). Taught literature in colledges, worked as assistant professor of foreign literatures and literary translation. Kuzmin founded the Vavilon Union of Young Poets, since 1989 been the organizational hub for Moscow's experimental poetry scene. Since 1993 he is the head of ARGO-RISK Publishers (about 20 titles of present-day Russian poetry yearly). Since 1996 he is editing the Vavilon Internet project (www.vavilon.ru) which includes an anthology of present-day Russian writing (about 200 authors up to the moment). Since 2006 he is also editor in chief of “Vozdukh” (“Air”), a quarterly poetry magazine. Kuzmin had also run "Moscow Literary Life" monthly review (1996–2002), the first Russian magazine for young writers "Vavilon" (1992–2003), the first Russian magazine for gay writing "Risk" (1996–2002), the first Russian haiku magazine "Triton" (2000–2004) etc. Kuzmin had compiled the first Russian anthology of prose poems (2000) and the first anthology of present-day Russian poetry written beyond Russia (2004). He won Andrei Bely award of Merit in Literature (2002). Kuzmin's poems are published in translation in USA, England, France, Poland, China and Italy. He has published in Russia translations of poetry from English (Auden, cummings, Stevens, Ashbery e.a.), French, Ukrainian. Selected poems and translations by Kuzmin, Horosho byt’ zhivym / It’s fine to be alive, as a hard-back of 400 pages, are forthcoming in 2008.

Gašper Malej was born in 1975 in Koper, a town in the bilingual environment of Slovenian Istria where he still lives and works. He graduated in comparative literature and literary theory from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. He is self-employed in the field of culture and writes poetry, short prose, literary reviews and essays which are published in Slovenian cultural magazines, daily newspapers and other media. His main activity is translating contemporary Italian fiction (poetry, narrative, drama and essays), having published translations of authors such as Cesare Pavese, Antonio Tabucchi, Dario Fo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Andrea Zanzotto, F. T. Marinetti, Eugenio Barba, Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Dino Buzzati, Franco Loi, Alda Merini, Paolo Ruffilli, Edoardo Erba and many others. He is a member of the Slovenian Association of Literary Translators (DSKP) from 2000. His collection of poems in Slovenian Otok, slutnje, poljub (Island, Premonitions, a Kiss; Publishing House ŠKUC – Lambda, Ljubljana 2004) was nominated for the “Best First Book” prize at the 21st Slovenian Book Fair (2005). Furthermore, he works in the field of theatre, especially as dramaturge and author of stage adaptations. In 2006 he was awarded with a one month’s residency in Helsinki as part of the “Sealines” international literary project and was consequently invited to the 23rd Lahti International Writers' Reunion (2007). In academic year 2007/08 he enrolled in postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Arts in Koper and is conducting a research leading to doctoral thesis on the anthropology of translation.

Lawrence Schimel was born in New York City in 1971 and has lived in Madrid, Spain since 1999. Writing in both Spanish and English, he is a prolific author and anthologist who has published over 80 books in many different genres. He has edited two anthologies of gay poetry: one in Catalan, Ells s'estimen. Poemes d'amor entre homes (1999), and one in English, Best Gay Poetry 2008, the first of an annual series. He has published translations into English of the gay Spanish poets: Luis Antonio de Villena, Luis Martínez de Merlo, Jesus Encinar, and Luis Cremades, among others. He has published one collection of poems in English, Fairy Tales for Writers (2007), with a French translation forthcoming in 2009. His anthology PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality won a Lambda Literary Award. Some of his other books include, for adults: First Person Queer (2007), The Future is Queer (2006), Two Boys in Love (2000), His Tongue (1999), The Drag Queen of Elfland (1997), Found Tribe: Jewish Coming Out Stories (2002), Kosher Meat (2000), Vacaciones en Ibiza (2003); and for children (all illustrated by Sara Rojo): Amigos y vecinos (2005), La aventura de Cecilia y el dragón (2005), ¿Lees un libro conmigo? (2005; chosen by IBBY for Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities 2007), No hay nada como el original (2004; chosen for the White Ravens 2005), etc. His writings have been published in Basque, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, and Spanish translations.

Valery Ledenyov was born in 1985 in Moscow. He graduated from Moscow State University of Pedagogics and Psychology and also studied psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. Now he works as editor at the Internet portal of Russian writers "New literary map of Russia" (litkarta.ru). He attended poetry seminars organized under the aegis of Debut prize (Russian literary award for young authors), and his poems were included in long-list of the prize. He participated in a number of Russian poetry festivals and published his own poems and translations of present-day American poetry (D. Nurkse, Ph. Nikolayev e.a.) in "Vozdukh" magazine and different almanacs. The first collection of his poems "The Smell of Polygraphy" appeared in 2008, and selected poems of young American poet Peter Golub in Ledenyov's translation were published in 2007 under the title "My Imagined Funeral".