Samira Negrouche’s ‘The Olive Trees’ Jazz’ Shortlisted for Derek Walcott Prize
Arrowsmith Press yesterday announced the shortlist for this year’s Walcott Prize:
The $1000 prize is offered annually “for a book of poetry by a non-US citizen published anywhere in the world.”
Among this year’s shortlistees is Algerian poet Samira Negrouche and American translator Marilyn Hacker for The Olive Trees’ Jazz, published by Pleiades Press in February 2020.
The winner, selected by Major Jackson, will be announced in June. The winner receives a $1000 honorarium and also a reading at the Boston Playwright’s Theatre, which Walcott founded.
The rest of the shortlist, as announced by Arrowsmith Press:
Funsọ Aiyejina’s The Errors of the Rendering (Peepal Tree Press)
Simon Armitage’s Magnetic Field (Faber & Faber)
John Barton’s Lost Family (Signal Editions)
Sarah Dowling’s Entering Sappho (Coach House Books)
Sasha Dugdale’s Deformations (Carcanet, Manchester U.K.)
Inua Ellams’ The Actual (Penned in the Margins, TJ Books, Ltd.)
David Harsent’s Loss (Faber & Faber)
Marija Knežević’s Breathing Technique (Zephyr Press)
Canisia Lubrin’s The Dyzgraphxst (McClelland & Stewart, Penguin Random House)
Claire Malroux’s Daybreak (NYRB/POETS) Andrew Motion’s Randomly Moving Particles (Faber & Faber)
Nii Ayikwei Parkes’ The Geez (Peepal Tree Press)
Don Paterson’s Zonal (Faber & Faber)
Galina Rymbu’s Life in Space (Ugly Duckling Presse)
Christopher Reid’s The Late Sun (Faber & Faber)
Denise Riley’s Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow (NYRB/POETS)
Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s Rain in Plural (Princeton Press)
John Elizabeth Stintzi’s Junebat (House of Anansi)
Serhiy Zhadan’s A New Orthography (Lost Horse Press)
Seven poems by Negrouche, tr. Hacker:
Plume: Six makeshift trees around my bathtub
Poets.Org: Minus One
PNR: Coffee, No Sugar
PNR: To Invent the Word?
ArabLit: Seven Little Jasmine Monologues
Asymptote: While You Pass By
Get The Olive Trees’ Jazz:
On Amazon | Small Press Distribution
Also read:
World Literature Today: “Who is Speaking”