Throughout 2024, the Poetry Translation Centre is celebrating its 20th birthday with a jam-packed programme of events, workshops, publications and prizes.

To celebrate the poets and translators we’ve worked with over the past two decades, we’ve planned five themed showcases in Norfolk, Newcastle, Ledbury, London, Sheffield and Manchester. In preparation, we’ve been building relationships with communities in those regions, partnering with an array of leading cultural and community organisations to run informal workshops and events exploring ideas around translation.

But that’s not all! As we turn twenty, we’re also getting a new look – keep your eyes peeled for a rebrand and a refresh of our website very soon.

The PTC will also publish four astonishing books in 2024, including our groundbreaking anthology Living in Language: International Reflections for the Practising Poet; a new World Poet Series title, Real by Turkish poet Karin Karakaşlı, translated by Canan Marasligil and Sarah Howe; a new title by Mexican poet Victor Terán, translated by Shook from Zapotec; and Translations of the Route, a collection by Argentine poet Laura Wittner translated by Juana Adcock, published in partnership with Bloodaxe Books. Laura will be touring her book with Juana here in the UK in October.

 

A collection of the PTC's World Poets Series titles
Photo by Luke Witcomb.

In September, back at SOAS where the PTC was founded, we’ll celebrate the winners of the Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry in translation, and then make way for an all-out birthday party. The Sarah Maguire Prize closed for submissions on 31 December 2023 – stay tuned for the shortlist announcement in the Spring, and events featuring the shortlistees throughout the Summer.

We are also developing a new hybrid event format, which we’ll be evaluating throughout the year. Each showcase will feature one blockbuster hybrid event that won’t not remind you of Eurovision, as we connect poets, translators and audiences virtually across borders, limiting our carbon footprint.

On top of that, we’re running our regular workshop seasons at home in Deptford and online, and have more plans for UNDERTOW, our programme for polylingual young poets.

Calendar of Events

January

23rd – A Georgian poetry translation workshop with select community groups in Newcastle (Brown Girls Write, Out of Your Head, Tees Women Poets, Poet in the City’s The Exchange)

February

5th – Our regular season of online poetry translation workshops begins, translating Persian, Chinese, Spanish and Somali with Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún and Leo Boix – more info here

March

8th – Publication of Living in Language, our anthology of lyric essays, fragments, letters and new poems exploring the craft of poetry from 21 writers around the world

14th – A panel and reception with Habib Tengour and Delaina Haslam at London Book Fair:

16th – A free Vietnamese poetry translation workshop with Quynh Nguyen and April Yee at our home in Deptford for Deptford Literature Festival

21st-23rd – Our Exile and Arrival Showcase at the National Centre for Writing, Norwich, now open for booking:

April

A series of free poetry translation workshops at Latin America House in partnership with Un Nuevo Sol, open to Latinx groups in London

16th – Polylingual Poetry Workshop – Out of Your Head! with Mymona Bibi and Tahmina Ali

20th – Poetry translation workshop with Ibrahim Hirsi and Translation and Displacement, an event featuring Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, at Lyra Poetry Festival, Bristol

25th – Polylingual Open Mic takeover of Out of Your Head in Newcastle’s Cumberland Arms

May

10th – Our Women Poets Showcase at Newcastle Poetry Festival, featuring top Georgian poets Diana Anphimiadi and Salome Bendize tuning in from National Parliamentary Library of Georgia in Tbilisi, and translators Natalia Bukia-peters, Helen Mort and Jean Sprackland on Northern Stage

11th – A Georgian poetry translation workshop with Natalia Bukia-Peters and Mymona Bibi at Newcastle Poetry Festival

Publication of Real by Karin Karakaşlı, translated by Canan Marasligil and Sarah Howe

June

Our regular season of in-person poetry translation workshops begins at our home in Deptford

Book launch for Real by Karin Karakaşlı, translated by Canan Marasligil and Sarah Howe

29th – Our Latinx Showcase begins at Ledbury Poetry Festival with a starry Queer Latinx Showcase featuring Leo Boix, Diana Bellessi (the godmother of Latinx lesbian poetry) and friends, in partnership with the University of San Andrés in Argentina

30th – Intro to poetry translation workshop with Leo Boix and Jon Herring at Ledbury Poetry Festival

July

9th – We keep our Latinx Showcase going at the British Library, London, in partnership with WritersMosaic, showcasing and discussing the collaborative translations created by Latinx community groups in April

11th – We publish and launch the stunning a new collection by Mexican poet Victor Terán, translated by Shook from Isthmus Zapotec

September

The glitzy Sarah Maguire Prize ceremony, announcing the winners of this year’s prize, followed by an all-out 20th birthday party at SOAS

30th – International Translation Day!

 

October

3rd – National Poetry Day

A good old-fashioned all-stops-pulled UK tour launching Translations of the Route, a collection by Argentine poet Laura Wittner and translated by Juana Adcock, published in partnership with Bloodaxe Books

Our Somali Poetry Showcase featuring leading Somali poets at Off the Shelf in Sheffield (12th-27th), Somali Week London (18th-27th) and London Literature Festival, in partnership with Hargeysa Cultural Centre in Somaliland and Kayd Somali Arts & Culture here in the UK

November

2nd – An online polylingual poetry workshop with Fathima Zahra at Off the Shelf

3rd – Home & Away, a Somali poetry reading at Somali Week Express Sheffield, in partnership with Kayd Somali Arts and Culture and Off the Shelf, with visiting poet Yasmin Mohamad Kahin, Maxamad Xasan ‘Alto’, Amina Jama and Ibrahim Hirsi

February 2025

The Future Is Now Showcase featuring the latest cohort of UNDERTOW poets (our polylingual young poets programme), in partnership with the Manchester Poetry Library, Singapore Writers’ Festival and SingLit Station