Chosen Tongue

• Ani Gjika: The Language of Freedom

  Ani Gjika is an Albanian-born writer who moved to the U.S. when she was eighteen. She is the award-winning author and literary translator of eight books and chapbooks of poetry, among them Bread on Running Waters (Fenway Press, 2013), a finalist for the 2011 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire Book Prize. Most recently, she is the recipient of the New Immigrant Writing Prize for her memoir,  An Unruled Body, (Restless Books, 2023), which was a 2023 Foreword INDIES winner and on the 2024 Massachusetts Book Award longlist for nonfiction.  Gjika is a recipient of awards and fellowships from the NEA, English PEN, Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize, the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, and others. For more, visit her website at: https://www.anigjika.com We discussed Ani's journey as a bilingual writer, her shift from Albanian to English and the complex layers of identity that come with writing across languages. Ani spoke about womanhood in her work, the struggle with verbal expression and the freedom she finds in writing. She also shared the importance of a mother tongue, the challenges of translation, and advice for fellow translingual authors.

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• Julie Irigaray: The Hidden Dangers of Feedback

  Julie Irigaray is a French-Basque poet based in Birmingham. Her pamphlet "Wailer, Witches and Gouches" was featured on BBC Radio 4, and her work has appeared in over 60 publications, including The Realtor, Ambit and Magma. A finalist or winner in 19 poetry competitions, most recently the 2024 Bridport Prize, she also teaches creative writing at City Lit. We discussed language, identity and belonging, the loss of Julie's cultural roots, the creative freedom of writing in English and the shifting experience of being both outsider and insider in the UK. Julie also opened up about her writing process navigating feedback and an upcoming memoir on language and love for England.

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• Elizabeth Torres: Every Language is a Codex

  Elizabeth Torres, known as Madam Neverstop, is a Colombian-American poet, translator, and multimedia artist residing in Denmark. With a background in Media & Film and Fine Arts from Kean University, NJ, and an MFA in Performing Arts from Den Danske Scenekunstskole, her work spans poetic journalism, artistic installations, film, soundscapes, and visual arts. She explores themes of displacement, identity, and minority representation through various media and has authored over 20 poetry books in multiple languages, contributing to numerous anthologies worldwide. In 2022 Elizabeth was the recipient of the Ambroggio Prize by the Academy of American Poets for her book Lotería: Nocturnal Sweepstakes. As a cultural organizer, she is the founder and director of The Poetic Phonotheque, Red Door Magazine & Gallery, the Nature & Culture: International Poetry Film Fest, Resonans Fringe Festival, and is the host of the Red Transmissions Podcast. We talked about Elizabeth's journey from Colombia to the to the US; how war, migration and language shaped their voice. She also talks about the healing force of poetry, the complexity of translation, and her life now in Denmark as a bilingual artist working across borders and forms.   www.madamneverstop.com

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• 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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• 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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