What does it mean to write about home? Do landscapes have their own unique vocabularies, and if so how can we ever we share them? How do words travel between languages? And what happens when we ourselves move away?
Poet and editor Anna Selby is joined by three writers whose work reflects on the language of home. Award-winning poet Bejan Matur’s latest work traces a linguistic journey back to the Kurdish village of her childhood. Jen Hadfield’s poetry draws on the language of her adopted home in Shetland. And Canan Marasligil explores how languages manifest in urban spaces through her multilingual City in Translation project. All three have recently worked together on a new chapbook of poems by Bejan, in English translations by Jen and Canan, entitled If this is a lament.
This event is presented in partnership with English PEN.
