Reading and Launch Party
Stop in for an intimate reading of poetry in translation, with drinks, snacks, and live musical vibes.
Triple Book Launch and Q&A at City of Asylum, Pittsburgh
March 9 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT
Watch the recording of the event here!
Don’t miss this exciting, triple book launch at City of Asylum, celebrating new works from local indie press Eulalia Books. The launch will feature the translators of the three works, Edith Adams (Guerrilla Blooms), Laura Cesarco Eglin (The Mistaken Place of Things), and Lauren Shapiro (Waking in the Sahara), who will discuss the art and process of translation. The poets behind these translated works—Gabriela Aguirre Sánchez, Daniela Catrileo, and Zaira Pacheco—will join the discussion virtually to share their poetry and participate in the audience Q&A.
Eulalia Books publishes contemporary poetry from Latin America—specifically, by writers whose work has not yet appeared in a full-length English translation. They believe that poetry thrives outside the margins of privilege, and they love translators who work on the ground to find these books. Their full-length books introduce Latin American poets (writing in a variety of languages) to an English readership, while foregrounding the role of translators as artists and collaborators. Their letterpress chapbook series, focused on experimental translations and translingual writing, is dedicated to a vital discourse on translation, language/s, and translation poetics.
This program will be followed by a reception open to all attendees.
About the Books:
Guerilla Blooms (Daniela Catrileo)
A leading voice in Mapuche literature, Daniela Catrileo traverses territories, languages, and chronologies, collapsing time and space to draw an enmeshed lineage from the arrival of the conquistadors to ongoing state violence against the Mapuche people. This kaleidoscopic work exposes the pervasive harm of colonialism while underscoring the political and ethical urgency of poetry, where vital modes of resistance and collaboration flourish. Guerrilla Blooms, Daniela Catrileo’s English-language debut, delivers an incisive critique of colonial power and violence.
The Mistaken Place of Things (Gabriela Aguirre)
Award-winning translator Laura Cesarco Eglin, traces the delicate intersections of presence and absence. Situated in everyday life, Aguirre’s work delves into the significance of places and spaces, not as static entities but as dynamic arenas for reflection. Her poetry is a quest through zones of attachment and distancing, and an invitation to seek out a place in the world of people and things, to never stop seeking.
Waking in the Sahara (Zaira Pacheco)
In the vibrant, minimalist landscape of this book, Puerto Rican poet Zaira Pacheco examines the interplay between illumination and obscurity, using cracks, fissures, pockets of shadows, and ancient water flows to reveal and conceal the traces of human presence. With an essential introduction by poet-translator, Lauren Shapiro, Waking in the Sahara is a dizzying exploration of origins set against the timeless backdrop of rock and sand. Pacheco, with Shapiro, constricts language to delve deeply into the spaces that lie beneath the limits of their names.
About the Translators:
Edith Adams is a translator and scholar of contemporary Latin American literature. Her translations have appeared in Guernica, Latin American Literature Today, mercury firs, New England Review, Northwest Review, and Words Without Borders, as well as in two anthologies: Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women (HarperCollins) and Best Literary Translations Anthology (Deep Vellum). She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California, where she is writing a dissertation on the legacies of colonial naming practices in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Laura Cesarco Eglin is a poet and translator from Uruguay. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including the chapbooks Between Gone and Leaving—Home (dancing girl press) and Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath (PRESS 254). Her poems and translations (from the Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician), have appeared in many journals such as Asymptote, Figure 1, Eleven Eleven, Puerto del Sol, Copper Nickel, SRPR, Arsenic Lobster, International Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Timber, and more. Cesarco Eglin is the translator of Claus and the Scorpion by the Galician author Lara Dopazo Ruibal (co•im•press), longlisted for both the 2023 PEN Award in Poetry in Translation and the 2023 National Translation Award in Poetry. She is also the translator of Of Death. Minimal Odes by the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst (co•im•press), which was the winner of the 2019 Best Translated Book Award. She translated from the Portuñol, together with Jesse Lee Kercheval, Fabián Severo’s Night in the North (Eulalia Books). Cesarco Eglin the publisher of Veliz Books. More at lauracesarcoeglin.com.
Lauren Shapiro is the author of BRID (Veliz Books, 2024), Arena (CSU Poetry Center, 2020), listed as a top poetry book of 2020 in The New York Times, and Easy Math (Sarabande, 2013), which was the winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize and the Debut-litzer Prize for Poetry. With Kevin González, she co-edited The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (Rescue Press, 2013). She has written two chapbooks of poems, House (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press) and Yo-Yo Logic (DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press, 2011). Individual poems have appeared in jubilat, Boston Review, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bennington Review, Columbia Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, Sixth Finch, Oversound, Annulet, Poetry Northwest, Diode Mississippi Review, and Drunken Boat, among other places. She has translated creative work from Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, and Arabic into English. She is an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.
About Your Visit:
The in-house restaurant Cucina Alfabeto is closed on Sundays and Mondays, but a cash wine bar will be available.
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Details
Date:
March 9
Time:
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT
Program Category:
Venue
40 W. North Avenue
Pittsburgh,PA15212United States+ Google Map
Phone
412-435-1110
Translation Party at Woodland Pattern, Milwaukee
Laura Cesarco Eglin reading from her translation of Gabriela Aguirre’s The Mistaken Place of Things.
Lauren Shapiro reading from her translation of Zaira Pacheco’s Waking in the Sahara.
March 30: Eulalia Books & Carrion Bloom Books
Stream the audio here!
This reading turned out to be a beautiful dialogue between books, between poets, between presses…with too many in-betweens of/within languages even to mention. One highlight: Adriana X. Jacobs explores some of the spatial-temporal considerations in her translation of Merav Givoni Hrushovski’s language, and her insights prelude, just fortuitously, some of the spatial-visual poetics of translation in Krasnoper’s reading as well. Enjoy!
Pittsburgh Launch of A Sea at Dawn
Join the translators for a reading, signing, and Q&A at the beautiful Vestige Concepts gallery in Lawrenceville.
Jesse Lee Kercheval and Jeannine Pitas: Reading and Conversation
Join the translators and editors for a book celebration on the Saint Vincent College campus in Latrobe. This event is sponsored by the Saint Vincent Center for Catholic Thought and Culture.
Another Life Reading & Book Talk with Eulalia Books and White Whale Bookstore
Join us and White Whale Bookstore on September 27 at 7pm for a virtual conversation with Daniel Lipara and Robin Myers, author and translator of our newest book, Another Life.
Please register for this event by snagging a ticket on Eventbrite (linked here)! There are both free tickets and pay-what-you-can tickets available. Free registration/ticket sales will end at 6:30pm on September 27. Please email events@whitewhalebookstore.com if you miss this cut-off and need a ticket. This event will be hosted on Zoom. You'll receive the link to the Zoom meeting the day of the event via email.
The Poetics of Translation Workshop Series - Fall 2020
The Poetics of Translation was a four-part series featuring several Eulalia Books translators who approached translation as a form of responsive writing and highlighted translation strategies as they apply to writing poetry. These interactive events were a combination of readings, presentations, Q&A sessions, and writing workshops and was open to all, no translation or foreign language experience necessary. Thank you to those who joined us for one or all of these sessions!
Workshops
September 2020
Click Graphic for Temporary Workshop Blog
The Mauve Desert, the book in discussion, is available for purchase on the Coach House Books website.
Click Graphic for Temporary Workshop Blog
Katabasis, the book in discussion, is available to purchase on the Eulalia Books website.
November 2020
October 2020
Click Graphic for Temporary Workshop Blog
Night in the North, the book in discussion, is available to purchase on the Eulalia Books website.
Click Graphic for Temporary Workshop Blog
Sleepless Nights Under Capitalism, the book in discussion, is available to purchase on the Eulalia Books website.
Bilingual Poetry Reading Workshop with Eulalia Books and co•im•press
Eulalia Books and co•im•press held a bilingual poetry reading at 7pm EST on Friday, October 30, featuring poet Lucía Estrada and translator Olivia Lott reading from Katabasis alongside poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez and translator Katherine M. Hedeen reading from from a red barn. Thank you to everyone who attended!
Check out the book trailer for Lucía Estrada’s Katabasis, translated by Olivia Lott, a reading by translator Olivia Lott, and a recording of the bilingual poetry reading that took place over zoom for a glimpse at the atmosphere of a poetry reading!
Jeannine Marie Pitas - September 26, 2019
Jeannine Marie Pitas is the author of three poetry chapbooks and the translator of several Uruguayan poets, including Marosa di Giorgio. Her first full-length poetry collection, Things Seen and Unseen, was published by Mosaic Press in 2019. She lives in Iowa and teaches at the University of Dubuque.
Michelle Gil-Montero, editor at Eulalia Books, speaks to Jeannine Pitas, translator of Eco del Parque (Echo of the Park), by Romina Freschi, Eulalia’s first full-length book of poetry. Pitas describes her translation process, reads select poetry from the book, and answers attendees’ questions.
Rachel Galvin - May 1, 2019
Rachel Galvin, poet, translator, and scholar, was the final reader in the spring 2019 Saint Vincent College Visiting Writers Series. She is an associate professor at the University of Chicago and a co-founder of Outranspo, an international creative translation collective (www.outranspo.com).
Rachel Galvin reads from Elevated Threat Level, a collection of her lyric poetry that reflects on news reporting, natural disasters, journalist safety, and much more.
Abigail Chabitnoy - March 13, 2019
Abigail Chabitnoy is a poet of Unangan and Sugpiaq descent and a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. She received her MFA at Colorado State University, where she was an associate editor for the Colorado Review. Her first full length book of poetry, How to Dress a Fish was published in February of 2019 by Wesleyan University Press.
Abigail Chabitnoy reads from How to Dress a Fish, which addresses the lives disrupted by US Indian boarding school policy.
Carmen Giménez Smith - March 26, 2013
Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir, three poetry collections, and three poetry chapbooks. She has also co-edited a fiction anthology and is the recipient of a 2011 American Book Award, the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry, and a 2011-2012 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Howard Foundation. Formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she now teaches in the creative writing programs at New Mexico State University and Ashland University, while serving as the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol and the publisher of Noemi Press.
Smith reads from her works and discusses them with an audience.
Eduardo Chirinos & Gary Racz - October 22, 2012
Eduardo Chirinos, an internationally acclaimed voice of Latin American letters, is professor of Modern and Classic Languages and Literatures at the University of Montana. A member of Peru’s 80’s Generation, which came of age after a decade of military dictatorship, Chirinos won the Premio Casa de América in 2001 for his volume Breve historia de la música [A Brief History of Music] and the Premio Generación del 27 in 2009 for Mientras el lobo está [While the Wolf is Around].
Gary Racz, the translator of Eduardo Chirinos, is an associate professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at Long Island University and at Rutgers University (the latter only during the summer). He presently serves as President of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and as a book review editor for Translation Review. A specialist in poetry translation, Racz has published many poems by Spanish and Latin American writers including Chirinos’ most recent publication, The Smoke of Distant Fires.
Eduardo Chirinos and the translator of his works, Gary Racz, read to an audience.
Kevin Pilkington - March 26, 2012
Kevin Pilkington is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of six collections of poetry including The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree (Black Lawrence Press, 2011). His poetry has appeared in many anthologies, and his poems and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Poetry and Ploughshares, among others. He also has a novel entitled Summer Shares (out from Arche Books).
Pilkington reads from his works, as do the winners of the 2012 Ragan Poetry Contest.
Horacio Castellanos Moya - October 20, 2011
Born in Honduras and raised in El Salvador, Horacio Castellanos Moya is the author of ten novels. He worked twelve years as a journalist in Mexico and has lived in Costa Rica, Canada, Guatemala, Spain and Germany (the latest under the auspices of the Frankfurt International Book Fair). He became famous in 1997 with the publication of his novel El asco [“Revulsion”], because of which he was forced into exile. In 2007, he came to the United States as writer-in-residence of City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, and he now teaches on the permanent faculty of The University of Iowa. His work has been translated into a dozen languages; four works have been translated into English, his most recent being Tyrant Memory.
Horacio Castellanos Moya reads from his works and comments on its subject matter.
Joy Katz - April 11, 2011
Joy Katz, a poet and writer, studied at Ohio State, Washington University in St. Louis, and Stanford. Katz worked as a graphic designer before beginning to write poems. She teaches in Carlow University’s ongoing Madwomen in the Attic workshops for women and serves as a thesis advisor in Chatham University’s MFA program. She is also an editor-at-large for Copper Nickel. In 2015, Katz co-founded the activist art collective Ifyoureallyloveme with theater director and humanitarian activist Cynthia Croot. Artists in the group use word, music, and performance, combined with pro-beauty and anti-racist strategies, to make art in Pittsburgh and other cities. Katz participated in choosing the winners of the Ragan Poetry Contest at Saint Vincent College in 2011.
Joy Katz interacts with her audience and gives powerful insight into her writing style, then answers questions from the audience while she reads from her book The Garden Room as well as from multiple poems.
Information gathered from Joy Katz’s website
Khet Mar - October 21, 2010
Khet Mar, a native of Burma, was born in 1969. She is a journalist, novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. Author of one novel, Wild Snowy Night, as well as several collections of short stories, essays and poems, her work has been translated into English and Japanese, been broadcast on radio and made into a film. In the fall of 2007, Mar was a visiting fellow at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and she is currently in residence at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, which provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of death, imprisonment or persecution in their native countries (Pen World Voices).
Translation students and Khet Mar read Mar's poetry (in which Mar, besides implementing various unique techniques, combines urban and rural themes that often never coincide in Burma).
Sarah O'Brien - April 23, 2010
A graduate of Brown University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Sarah O’Brien grew up on a small farm in Ohio and has lived in Cape Town, Paris and various places in the United States. She is the translator of Ryoko Sekiguchi’s Heliotropes, and her book Catch Light was selected by David Shapiro for the National Poetry Series. But not only is she a writer, she is also a fabulous cook and photographer.
O'Brien reads poems from Catch Light. With her visual narrative, O’Brien throws her audience into pictures, catching their eyes and ears and allowing them to become part of her story.