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Stephen Watts

Stephen Watts is a poet, editor & translator. His own most recent books include Gramsci & Caruso (2004), Mountain Language/Lingua di montagna  (2008), Journey Across Breath/ Tragitto nel respire  (2011) & Ancient Sunlight (2014). Recent co-translations include books of modern Kurdish poetry and volumes by Ziba Karbassi, Meta Kušar, Adnan al-Sayegh & A.N. Stencl (from Farsi, Slovenian, Arabic & Yiddish) and a book of Amarjit Chandan’s poetry. He has read internationally, in Syria (2010), in Romania (May & September 2013), in Monza, Milan & Ravenna (2014) & again in Romania & Sweden (2016). He has also curated many bilingual readings at exhibitions, (including Emil Nolde, Miro, Arshile Gorky, Guttuso & Francisco Toledo). His poetry has been translated into Italian, Czech, Slovenian, Arabic, Bengali & Romanian. Ongoing work includes collaborations with the Romanian poet Clau-diu Komartin and the Syrian poet Golan Haji. His forthcoming books include The Language Of It from Shearsman. A prose work Republic Of Dogs/Republic Of Birds was published by Test Centre in 2016. Recent co-translations include Pages From The Biography Of An Exile by the Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh (Arc, 2016) &‘Six Georgian Poets’ (Arc, 2016). He also recently co-edited British Bangladeshi Poetry with Shamim Azad (Dhaka Book Fair, 2017) and is now co-translating a memoir of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence. He has lived in Whitechapel, London, for the past 40 or so years, where he has worked as a poet in schools and hospitals, and he runs poetry workshops at homeless drop-in centres. For many years, he has compiled bibliographies of South Asian poetries in translation.