José F.A. Oliver
English
is one of the most “important poets of his generation in Germany” (El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile), and one of the most significant inter-cultural writers of German language today. He writes predominantly in German but is also influenced by Spanish poets such as Federico Garcia Lorca. To date he has published more than 14 volumes of poetry, and has received numerous awards. In 1997 he was awarded with the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Preis, the most prestigious award for an inter-cultural author in Germany. Mr. Oliver was also guest professor and writer-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. (2002), and at the University of Warwick, UK (2007). Acclaim for Mr. Oliver’s work: “José Oliver’s poetry is unique among the works of contemporary writers in Germany. (…) Anybody, who looks in present day poetry for music, for the linguistic and aesthetic experiment, for harmony between breath and image, for sound-crystals, will be amply rewarded.” (J. Sartorius, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich); “We deal with a talent of highest quality, with a poet of entire individual dignity, with a writer of rare earnestness.” (F.J.
Raddatz, Die Zeit, Hamburg).Or as literary scholar Harald Weinrich puts it during the laudation for his Chamisso Award: “José Oliver rejects any form of linguistic expression, in German or in Spanish, if it is not thoroughly exploring the foreignness ‘outside’ and the foreignness ‘inside’ oneself, or if it does not teach his readers to live in this world as foreigners and refugees themselves.”
ISBN: 978-1-945680-10-6
$18.00
Translationand Introduction by Marc James Mueller
"JoséF. A. Oliver's dream of 'an open language,' which mixesthe cadences and inflections of his Andalusian roots withthe inventive possibilities of German, reminds us that foreignness is our true condition. He bridges ethnic and non-ethnic German in sandscript, which explores some of the same broken terrain mapped by another brave traveler in the language, Paul Celan, and what he encounters line by line is a self that is at once foreign and familiar: 'my poem my word' Here is the work of a man who is 'German and still not German, Spanish and still not Spanish, on the move: Me. You will find him everywhere?"
-Christopher Merrill, author of Necessities
"I have been savouring the amazing accomplishment of Sandscript thank you so much for your amazing, translingual poetry: a body of work that is robust yet delicate, powerful, memorable, deep! Such a moving experience to read both your originals, and the translations."
-Ranjit Hoskoté
WHITE PINE PRESS
LIVES IN TRANSLATION
ISBN 1-4039-6066-6
$22.95/$33.95 Can.
"Lives in Translation is a very beautiful and magical book, written in many voices and many inflections. It is a testament to the privileges and perils that human beings discover when they cross a linguistic boundary and discover not just other customs and other people but another self, another me. A priceless addition to the literature of exile." -André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt and False Papers
Jacket design by ANNE FINK
palgrave macmillan
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