Join us to raise a glass of wine as we launch Lost Wor(l)ds: Intersemiotic Translations by Peter Constantine, which will run from 21 March – 20 April 2024. The exhibition preview will include an artist talk, along with a reveal of a limited edition hand-printed poetry broadside co-created with MMU students and staff for the occasion.

The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University welcomes distinguished translator of nine languages Peter Constantine, and award-winning Modern Greek poet Eleni Kefala, to the Manchester Poetry Library for the second annual Manchester Translation Series. A Guggenheim fellow, Peter Constantine was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for Six Early Stories by Thomas Mann, the National Translation Award for The Undiscovered Chekhov, and other awards.

As a recent article in LitHub described: “The vastness of Peter Constantine’s personal linguistic range is almost unimaginable to most of us. He moves with ease between German, Modern Greek, Italian, Russian, Afrikaans, French, Ancient Greek, Japanese—and those are just the languages I happen to know about.” Constantine directs the Program in Literary Translation at the University of Connecticut.

Eleni Kefala is a senior lecturer at the University of St. Andrews whose research examines modernity across periods, disciplines and cultures. Her poetry collection Time Stitches received the State Prize for Poetry in Cyprus; its English translation by Peter Constantine was selected as a New York Times “Globetrotting” pick, and was awarded the 2022 Elizabeth Constantinides Prize.

This exhibition is presented as part of the 2024 Manchester Translation Series, which will conclude on 21/3 at 18:30 with a poetry reading by the visiting guests, along with a discussion on topics related to translation, visual art, multilingualism and the roles of literature in our current geopolitical moment.

This event is supported with funding from AHEAD