The PTC continues its translation of Érica Zíngano’s i-juca piranha, a long poem that is still being written even as we translate it. i-juca piranha is a multi-page, long poem that considers the role of language-learning in violent colonisation.

The poem is discursive and chatty, and our translation-in-progress is trying to keep the rhythm and ‘cigarette-in-the-hand’ kind of story-telling of the original text along with its ironic changes in register.

This poem speaks directly to questions around language, translation and colonisation. Joining this workshop is a great way to see what the Poetry Translation Centre and its collaborative translation process is all about. This is the perfect workshop for people interested in developing their critical thinking around translation.

There is no need to know Portuguese to take part in this workshop. Everyone is welcome.

Poet Érica Zíngano

Érica Zíngano was born in 1980 in Fortaleza-Ceará, Brazil. She received a Master’s in Portuguese Literature at the Universidade de São Paulo in 2011, and then she moved to Europe, to Portugal, where she began a Ph.D in Literary Studies – Portuguese Studies at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. From 2014, she was living and working in Berlin as a poet and a language teacher, but in the beginning of 2019 she decided to move back to Brazil. Her work revolves around poetry and sometimes visual arts, and she has been exploring the enunciation of poems in performative actions.

Guest translator Francisco Vilhena

Francisco Vilhena is an editor and translator. He writes short essays and translates from the Portuguese; his co-translation of Adelaide Ivánova's the hammer and other poems was shortlisted for the 2020 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. He was a contributing editor to the White Review and serves on the advisory board of the Poetry Translation Centre; his work can be found in Granta, Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote and elsewhere. His cat was one of the first feline polyglots.

Poet-facilitator Chrissy Williams

Each season of PTC translation workshops is led by a poet, in this case we are delighted to be working with poet, editor and comic book writer Chrissy Williams. Her writing has been featured on BBC radio and television, and her full poetry collections are Bear (Bloodaxe, 2017) and Low (Bloodaxe, 2021). She edits the online poetry journal Perverse, and has run numerous workshops over the years. She has an Italian mother and English father, and was raised bilingually.