John R. Keene is the author of Annotations and Counternarratives, both published by New Directions, as well as several other works, including the poetry collection Seismosis, with artist Christopher Stackhouse, and a translation of Brazilian author Hilda Hilst’s novel Letters from a Seducer. Born in St. Louis, Keene is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University, where he was a New York Times Fellow. He is the recipient of many awards and fellowships—including a MacArthur Genius Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize, and the Whiting Foundation Prize for fiction. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark. (Bio adapted from New Directions.)
John Keene talks to Commonplace host Rachel Zucker about his experiences—starting as early as middle school—with translation, why he believes translation is so important, and how his work as a poet and fiction writer is informed by his work as a translator. Keene, who primarily translates from Portuguese, French and Spanish, speaks about his article “Translating Poetry, Translating Blackness,” and how the dearth of translations of non-Anglophone black diasporic writers into English compounds problem of the lack of representation in media and literature. Keene also discusses the whiteness of the publishing industry, the unique challenges of translating LGBTQ+ literature across cultures, and more.
EXTRA RESOURCES FOR EPISODE 64Books by John KeeneCounternarratives (New Directions, 2016)
Seismosis (1913 Press, 2013)
Annotations (New Directions, 1995)
Books Translated by John KeeneLetters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst (Nightboat, 2014)
Other Books and Writers Mentioned in the EpisodeBroken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (Soft Skull, 2010)
Walter Benjamin
Roman Jakobson
François Charles Mauriac’s Viper’s Tangle
Edimilson de Almeida Pereira
Samuel Richardson
NATHANAËL
Patrick Sylvain
Clarice Lispector
Patrick Chamoiseau
Paulo Leminski
Eric M. B. Becker
Dorothy J. Wang
Prageeta Sharma
Daniel Borzutzky
Rupi Kaur
Rosa Alcalá
Christiane Sobral
Reginald Gibbons
Susannah Gottlieb
Other Relevant LinksJames Sweet (historian)
Nicholas Muellner
Adrian MS Piper
Cave Canem
Dark Room Collective
Black Panther
Crazy Rich Asians
Lee and Low Books’ Survey on Diversity in Publishing
William S. YellowRobe
Translating Poetry, Translating Blackness”
Words without Borders’ special issue on Afro-Brazilian writing
Episode 101: Prageeta Sharma
Episode 100: Doreen Wang
Episode 99: Douglas Kearney
Episode 98: Torrey Peters
Episode 97: Camille Dungy
Episode 96: Judy Grahn
Episode 95: Jason Schneiderman
Episode 94: Jennifer Block
Episode 93: Arielle Greenberg
Episode 92: Behind the Scenes
Episode 91: Nate Marshall
Episode 90: Makenna Goodman
Episode 89: The Ladder Out of the Hole
Episode 88: Global Roll Call, Part 3
Episode 87: Global Roll Call, Part 2
Episode 86: Global Roll Call, Part 1
Episode 85: The Craft of the Literary Interview
Episode 84: M. NourbeSe Philip
Episode 83: Darcey Steinke
Episode 82: Maggie Nelson
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