Poet and translator, André Naffis-Sahely, joined us for a fascinating workshop on poetry written in Italian poetry by Ribka Sibhatu from Eritrea.
Born in Eritrea, Ribka Sibhatu has lived in Rome since 1996. She writes in both Italian and Tigrinya; in this workshop, we translated two poems from her first collection, Aulò! Canto Poesia dall’Eritrea (Sinnos, 1993), a bilingual collection of lyrics and prose poems originally that Sibhatu appears to have composed in both Tigrinya and Italian, with her own translations into the other language.
We translated one fascinatingly complex, but wonderfully understated, prose poem called ‘Virginity’ and the delicate and profound lyric, ‘Mother Africa’.
This will be the first time we’ve translated a poet from Eritrea, and the first time we’ve translated from Italian, so it should be a fascinating workshop. Please do join us if you can.
Our poetry translation workshops are one of the PTC’s core activities. Through them we’ve first encountered some of the poets we’ve gone on to translate, publish and record at length. A significant number of the poets who’ve visited the UK to take part in our tours were introduced to us by a translator bringing their poems to a workshop.
The workshops are open to anyone who can contribute a translation of a poem by a living African, Asian or Latin American poet who has an established reputation in their own language.
Workshops are free but places are limited so advance booking is essential. If you’ve not attended one of our workshops before, please read this before booking a place.
To book a place click here or follow the link below.
