Chosen Tongue

• Sulaiman Addonia: Writing is Not Just About Language (Bonus Episode)

  Sulaiman Addonia is an Eritrean-Ethiopian-British novelist. As a child, he lived in refugee camps in Sudan and Saudi Arabia. His third novel, The Seers, has been published in 2024. His first novel, The Consequences of Love, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In 2021 he published Silence Is My Mother Tongue. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Addonia now lives in London, where he runs a creative writing school for refugees and asylum seekers. In Brussels, he founded The Asmara Addis Literary (in Exile) Festival (AALFIE), a vagabond, multilingual celebration rooted in pan-African and feminist values. It aims to showcase the rich linguistic wealth and diversity of European artists with international backgrounds. 

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  32:18
• Ruben Quesada: Bridging Cultures through Translation

  Ruben Quesada is a Costa Rican-American poet and translator based in Chicago. His latest poetry collection, Brutal Companion, winner of the Barrow Street Press Editors Prize, was published in October 2024. He edited the anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, which won an Independent Publisher Book Award in 2023. Quesada’s work appears in Seneca Review, American Poetry Review, the Best American Poetry series, Harvard Review, and The New York Times Magazine. We discussed the influence of Ruben's Costa Rican background on his poetry and the importance of storytelling and translation in bridging cultural gaps, as well as his desire to preserve his family's culture through his work. 

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  26:47
• Noémi Kiss-Déaki: English is My Allspice

  Noémi Kiss-Deáki is a Hungarian author living in Finland. Her début novel, Mary and The Rabbit Dream, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2024. Noémi currently lives on the Åland Islands with her daughter. We discussed her creative process, the challenges and joys of navigating languages and cultures, and how Noémi found her writing voice in English. 

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  26:11
• Viviana Fiorentino: We are Collectors of Others

  Viviana Fiorentino is an Italian poet, novelist, and translator living in Ireland. Her poems in English appeared in anthologies (Dedalus Press, Salmon Poetry, and Arlen House), magazines (Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Southword, The London Magazine) , on public transports in Dublin (Poetry in Motion, Poetry Ireland), on air for RTÉ 1, in the The Irish Poetry Reading Archive. She translated into Italian the Irish poets Freda Laughton (Arcipelago Itaca, 2022), Doireann Ní Ghríofa (VersoDove, rivista di Letteratura, n. 23, 2024), Paula Meehan (Il Pietrisco, 2023) and Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier (Verodove, rivista di Letteratura, n. 22, 2023). She published an essay on Anne Carson with translations in the volume Trasparenze 8/22 of San Marco dei Giustiniani (2022). In Italian, she published a novel (Transeuropa Edizioni, 2019) and two poetry collections (Controluna Press 2019, Zona Contemporanea 2021). Viviana’s short stories, poems, interviews and essays have been published in Literary Journals and online magazines such as Italian Poetry Review, Nazione Indiana, Nuovi Argomenti, Balena Bianca. She is the 2022 Irish Chair Of Poetry Student Prize winner and finalist in the Gregory O’Donoghue Poetry Competition 2024. Viviana is currently a PhD candidate at the Seamus Heaney Centre (Queen's University Belfast.) We discussed Viviana's journey as a poet and writer who transitioned from Italian to English after moving to Ireland, the role of translation in her creative process, and the emotional shield English has given her. 

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  30:26
• Yael van der Wouden: English Gave Me Control over My Experiences

  Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher of creative writing and comparative literature in the Netherlands. Her debut novel, The Safekeep, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024 and has been translated into over fourteen languages. Her essay on Dutch identity and Jewishness, "On (Not) Reading Anne Frank", has received a notable mention in The Best American Essays 2018.  We discussed the role of displacement and otherness in Yael's work and how English gave her a sense of control over her experiences. Yael also reflected on the challenges of writing in multiple languages and the differences in tolerance towards foreignness in English and in Dutch. 

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  37:33

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