International Literary Salon in Santa Fe: Arthur Sze, Ryo Yamaguchi & Others

From the organizers:

Words Without Borders is excited to partner with LA MAMA in Santa Fe for a summer afternoon of literature—local and international. Santa Fe-based writers and translators Kareem Abu-Zeid, Arthur Sze, Christina Vo, and Ryo Yamaguchi will be reading their own work as well as the translated writing of contemporary authors from across the globe: Najwan Darwish (tr. Kareem Abu-Zeid), Wang Jiaxin (tr. Arthur Sze), Claudia Masin (tr. Robin Myers), Iryna Shuvalova (self-translated), Bùi Ngọc Tấn (tr. Nguyễn-Hoàng Quyên), Wang Xiaoni (tr. Arthur Sze), and Isabel Zapata (tr. Robin Myers).

Ticketing and accessibility information

Please RSVP on Eventbrite. Once tickets run out, you may sign up for the waitlist. If you are released a ticket from the waitlist, you will have 8 hours to claim the ticket before it’s offered to another person.

This is a free, all-ages event with limited space and seating (stools and benches) located up a stairway at LA MAMA. This is not a wheelchair accessible event. Delicious food and drink will be available for sale at LA MAMA.

About the readers

Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is an Egyptian-American translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world who translates from Arabic, French, and German. His translation of the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish’s Exhausted on the Cross was the winner of the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation, as well as a finalist for the PEN America Award, the National Translation Award, and the Derek Walcott Prize. He has received a residency from Santa Fe’s Lannan Foundation, and is also the author of the book The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice (Lockwood Press, 2021).

Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021); Sight Lines, which won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian-American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), selected for an American Book Award. He has also published one book of Chinese poetry translations, The Silk Dragon (2001), selected for the Western States Book Award, and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). In the spring of 2024, The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry will be published by Copper Canyon Press. Sze is the recipient of many honors, including a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2021 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Christina Vo is a writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she continues to write and explore the interplay of culture, identity, and personal history. Her work reflects her commitment to understanding and sharing the complexities of the human experience. Christina’s debut memoir, The Veil Between Two Worlds: A Memoir of Silence, Loss, and Finding Home, demonstrates her ability to weave personal experiences into broader narratives about identity, home, and belonging. Her second book, My Vietnam, Your Vietnam, an intergenerational memoir co-written with her father, will be published in May 2024. Christina attempts to carve out time to focus on her personal writing, while spending her days working as a donor relations writer for Stanford University. She has worked internationally for UNICEF in Vietnam, the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, as well served as a consultant for nonprofits. Christina holds an MSc in social and public communication from the London School of Economics.

Ryo Yamaguchi (he/him) is the publicist for Copper Canyon Press. He is the author of the poetry collection The Refusal of Suitors, published by Noemi Press. His poems have recently been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2020 and The Best Small Fictions 2020 and have also recently appeared in journals such as the Bennington Review, the Yalobusha Review, and The Volta, among others. Ryo has been a staff critic for Harriet Books from the Poetry Foundation, and his other critical writings can be found in outlets such as Jacket2, the Kenyon Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.