October 5: World Poetry Books—Feminist Surrealists
Presented by 192 Books, a conversation between translators Kathleen Heil and C. Francis Fisher, moderated by Mark Polizzotti
This event will take place in person at 192 Books at 192 10th Ave on Saturday, October 5th at 4:00 PM ET. Seating is limited. RSVP for free here. The discussion will also be streamed directly on this page. There is no login required. A recording will be archived.
Books will be available for sale after the conversation.
Join us for a conversation between translators Kathleen Heil and C. Francis Fisher, moderated by translator and scholar Mark Polizzotti, celebrating their respective translations of the poetry of Méret Oppenheim and Joyce Mansour.
The Loveliest Vowel Empties: Collected Poems of Meret Oppenheim (tr. Kathleen Heil, World Poetry Books, 2023)
Oppenheim’s work—49 poems written between 1933 and 1980—moves beyond Surrealism to inhabit a voice all her own, with imagery and sound that, as the Herald Tribune wrote, “express witty and poetic responses to the surprises of life.” A key figure of the Paris art scene in the 1930s, Oppenheim moved in a circle that included André Breton, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Elsa Schiaparelli.
Méret Oppenheim was born in Berlin in 1913 and died in Basel in 1985. Best known for Object, her fur-lined teacup from 1936, her expansive body of work included painting, drawing, sculpture, object constructions, jewelry designs, and poetry.
In the Glittering Maw: Selected Poems of Joyce Mansour (tr. C. Francis Fisher, World Poetry Books, 2024)
Joyce Mansour's late poems chart constellations of desire, femininity, and dream. Considered by Andre Bréton to be the preeminent Surrealist of the postwar period, Mansour brings this masculine movement into a feminine realm never before imagined. She insists on a forgotten or perhaps vehemently denied eventuality of women’s equality: their ability to do harm, to be violent.
Joyce Mansour (1928–1986) was born in England to Syrian-Jewish parents. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Cairo, where Mansour lived until she was forced to emigrate. She settled in Paris in 1953, where she continued writing and became a key member of the postwar Surrealist milieu.
Kathleen Heil is a writer/translator and choreographer/performer whose poetry, prose, and translations appear in The New Yorker, Fence, Two Lines, The Threepenny Review, and other journals. Originally from New Orleans, she lives and works in Berlin.
C. Francis Fisher received her MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Yale Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.
Mark Polizzotti has translated more than sixty books from the French. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. Polizzotti is the author of twelve books, including Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto and Why Surrealism Matters. He lives in New York, where he directs the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.