Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today, he is also one of the first poets to be translated by the Poetry Translation Centre. To celebrate his most recent PTC collection this workshop will focus on Saddiq’s more recent poems, composed in the melancholy of recent exile, and initially posted on Facebook as a way of staying in touch with colleagues and friends in Khartoum. Bryar Bajalan and Shook, who worked closely with the poet to translate these poems will be leading the workshop, talking a look at poems from the same sequence that didn’t make the final volume.

Poet - Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi has gained a wide audience in his native Sudan for his imaginative approach to poetry and for the delicacy and emotional frankness of his lyrics. His poetry has always been concerned with the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of Sudan and its complex history. Saddiq's first poetry collection Songs of Solitude was published in 1996 (second edition, 1999) and in 2012 he was the poet in residence at the Petrie Musem London.

Workshop Facilitator - Helen Bowell

Helen Bowell is a London-based poet and co-director of Dead [Women] Poets Society. In 2020, she co-guest-edited an issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (focus on dead women poets). She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and her debut pamphlet The Barman was published by Bad Betty Press in 2022.

Shook

Poet, translator, and filmmaker Shook was raised in Mexico City. They earned a BA at the University of Oklahoma and an MSt at Oxford University. In their debut collection, Our Obsidian Tongues (2013), Shook explores the violence and hunger of everyday life, steeping their poems in lush imagery and sensory detail.

Bryar Bajalan

Bryar Bajalan is a writer, translator and filmmaker presently pursuing a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His work as a translator from the Arabic and Kurdish has appeared in Ambit, Modern Poetry in Translation and on the Poetry Foundation website, and his present projects include the translation of poets displaced from Shingal during the Islamic State’s genocide of the Êzîdî and the collection of oral histories in Mosul.

There is no need to know the language being translated. Simply come along and share your passion for words, writing and understanding.

Season Passes

You can get tickets for individual workshops or save money by signing up for a Season Pass. The saving on a season pass is equivalent to a free workshop. Concession tickets are available for the unwaged.

Season Pass - £55 (£35 concessions)

PLEASE NOTE

The location of this workshop has changed. We will now be meeting at Sodo Pizza Deptford, 144A Deptford High St, London SE8 3PQ, right around the corner from our offices at The Albany.

Also, the date of this event was originally Monday July 10th. This was changed on 05/04/23.