CANCELLED: It is with great regret that the PTC and our partners National Centre for Writing have taken the decision to cancel this event due to the escalation of the COVID-19 outbreak. We will be refunding ticket holders and plan to hold this workshop again in the future.
Try your hand at the craft of poetry translation with this two-hour workshop led by British bilingual poet, storyteller and writer Shamim Azad, and poet, translator and environmental activist Jamie Osborn. Perfect for poets interested in translation and translators interested in poetry.
Through practical exercises and informal group discussion, Shamim and Jamie will guide you through an exploration of the language and culture of Bengali poet Nirmalendu Goon, one of the most popular and prolific Bangladeshi poets. This hands-on process gives you the opportunity to experience the fine balancing act of translating one of Nirmalendu’s poems into English, while also helping poets to find a new audience in a second language.
No prior translation experience or knowledge of Bengali necessary!
In partnership with the National Centre for Writing
Nirmalendu Goon was born into an undivided India in Kashbon in present-day Bangladesh. An avowed Marxist, Goon has also written poems urging an upheaval of the poor against the rich. He also has written a number of poems on important personalities, including Rabindranath, Sheikh Mujib, Lenin, Shakti Chattopadhyay and others.
Shamim Azad is a British bilingual poet, storyteller and writer of Bangladeshi origin. Azad’s work ranges from Bangladeshi to European folktales. Her performance fuses the lines between education and entertainment and her workshops are rooted in Asian folk, oral traditions and heritage. Azad has published books including novels, collections of short stories, essays and poems in both English and Bangla.
Jamie Osborn is a poet, translator and environmental activist in Norwich. His poems and translations have been featured in Carcanet’s New Poetries VII, PN Review, the TLS, Poetry London, Blackbox Manifold and elsewhere. He has worked with Assyrian Iraqi refugees, publishing translations of their work in Modern Poetry in Translation, and he is now a board member of MPT. He is currently working on a series poem-portraits of Extinction Rebellion protestors.
