Christian Hawkey and Susan Bernofsky

I Would Read You in Any Strange Land : Christian Hawkey and Susan Bernofsky discuss the art of translation.

Christian Hawkey (Ventrakl, UDP 2010) is the author of three previous books of poetry. His first book, The Book of Funnels, appeared in 2004 and won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His second book, a chapbook called HourHour, includes drawings by the artist Ryan Mrozowski, and was published by Delirium Press in 2005. Citizen Of, his third book, was released by Wave Books in the spring of 2007. His poems have appeared in Conjunctions, Volt, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, Crowd, BOMB, Chicago Review, Best American Poetry, and Conduit, and his art criticism has appeared in frieze and Meatpaper. He is currently an Associate Professor at Pratt Institute, where he teaches the practice of writing poetry in the Writing Program.

Susan Bernofsky has translated 15 books, including six by the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, as well as novels by Jenny Erpenbeck, Yoko Tawada, Hermann Hesse, Gregor von Rezzori, and others. The 2006 recipient of the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize, she has also received awards and fellowships from the NEH, NEA, American Council of Learned Societies, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Lannan Foundation. She is currently serving as Co-Chair of the PEN Translation Committee. Her most recent published translations included Microscripts by Robert Walser (New Directions/Christine Burgin, 2010) and Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions, 2010). She teaches at Queens College and Columbia University.