Literary Translation at Columbia: John Keene
John Keene is an artist, a translator, and a writer. His recent books include: the story and novella collection Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015); the art book GRIND (Image Text Ithaca Press, 2016), an art-text collaboration with photographer Nicholas Muellner; and the poetry chapbook Playland (Seven Kitchens Press, 2016). He also has translated the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst’s novel Letters from a Seducer (Nightboat Books, 2014), and numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from French, Portuguese, and Spanish. His recent honors include an American Book Award (2016), a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction (2016), a Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction (2018), and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2018). He chairs the African American and African Studies department, and teaches English, African American studies, and creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark in New Jersey.
Co-presented by the Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts, the Institure for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, and Our Word.