The Bristol Tbilisi Association hosts all four of our poets: Diana Anphimiadi and Salome Benidze from Georgia, and their poet-translators, Jean Sprackland and Helen Mort, for a celebration of poetry and community at Bristol City Hall. Ths is a great opportunity to see all the touring poets at one event alongside Natalia Bukia-Peters, the Georgian translator who made the whole tour possible.
Bristol and Tbilisi became twinned cities in 1988 when Georgia was still firmly part of the Soviet Union. The story goes that representatives from Tbilisi were at a conference looking for a city to twin with when they met representatives from Bristol in the bar. Following an evening of toasting each other’s great cities, it was agreed that they would work towards becoming twinned.
Diana Anphimiadi is a poet, publicist, linguist and teacher. She has published four collections of poetry: Shokoladi (Chocolate, 2008), Konspecturi Mitologia (Resumé of Mythology, 2009), Alhlokhedvis Traektoria (Trajectory of the Short-Sighted, 2012) and Kulinaria (Personal Cuisine, 2013). Her poetry has received prestigious awards, including first prize in the 2008 Tsero and the Saba Award for best first collection in 2009. She lives in Tbilisi with her husband and young son.
Salome Benidze is a poet, novelist and translator, as well as a campaigner for women’s rights. She won the Saba Award for best debut in 2012, which brought her nationwide recognition. She is the author of two collections of poetry and one novel, The City on Water which was a national bestseller and won the Tsinandali Award in 2015. Her works of translation include David Beckham’s My Side, Shirin Ebadi’s The Golden Cage and Salman Rushdie’s Two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights.
Jean Sprackland‘s most recent collection, Sleeping Keys, was published in 2013, and Tilt won the Costa Poetry Award in 2007. She is also author of Strands, the winner of the Portico Prize for Non Fiction. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Chair of the Poetry Archive.
Natalia Bukia-Peters is a freelance translator, interpreter and teacher of Georgian and Russian. She studied at Tbilisi State Institute of Foreign Languages before moving to New Zealand in 1992, then to Cornwall in 1994. She is a translator for the Poetry Translation Centre in London and a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and translates a variety of literature, poetry and magazine articles. Her translations in collaboration with writer Victoria Field include short fiction and poetry by contemporary Georgian writers. Their most recent book is an anthology, A House with no Doors – Ten Georgian Women Poets (Francis Boutle, 2016)
Please note that Salome Benidze’s poet-translator Helen Mort will not be reading at this event as advertised. Her translations will be read by the poet Edward Doegar, PTC’s Commissioning Editor.
A glass of Georgian wine included in your ticket price.
Presented in partnership with The Bristol Tbilisi Association.
