© akaiser
translation
Moved by my curiosity for the world, its people, peoples and cultures, I have traveled to, lived and worked in many astounding places.
I have collaborated on special political & cultural events, publications, and/or translation prize committees including with French Voices, PEN, Villa Gillet, and, within the French government, its Book Office and Cultural Services, as well as for France Fiction for the Frankfurt Book Fair. I have translated and interpreted for journalists, hospitals, schools and law firms, for pro bono human rights cases, for the UN and its related offices, including the UN General Assembly & Security Council, UNESCO and the Spanish Mission to the UN.
Translations include work by Javier Acosta Escareño, René Backmann, André Breton, Marie Darrieussecq, Cynthia Fleury, Anna Gual, Cebrià Montoliu, Marie Ndiaye and Tzvetan Todorov, Anahi Mariluan, Toni R. Juncosa, Kim Stafford.
Anna-Gual_Silvia-Servat
Anna Gual (photo © Silvia Servat)
Anna Gual is one of Catalunya’s most vital poetic voices. Her quests, and the singular ways she embarks on and writes them, draw in poets, readers, and critics alike. She is the author of consistently prize-winning collections of poetry: Implosions (2008), L’ésser solar (2013), Símbol 47 (2015), Molsa (2016), El tubercle (2016), Altres semideus (2019), Ameba (2020) and i Les ocultacions (2022). Additionally, Innombrable, a selected works (2019) and, as editor, Jo tinc mort petita (2025). Poems have been translated into several languages, including poems and librettos transposed into song. She has been invited to several festivals in Europe and in 2021 was artist-in-residence at El Palau de la Música. Along with poet-translator and critic, Jaume C. Pons Alorda, she created a reading series celebrating living Catalan poetry forerunners. Poems in English appear in Circumference, Four Way Review, Harvard Review, Hyperion, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry, Poetry International, and World Literature Today. Books have been translated into French, Italian and Spanish.
selected cv — translation
— 2026 —
AWP
Baltimore
Book Signings, Vermont Studio Center Booth & Zephyr Press
March 6
Unnameable included in Poetry Books Showcase
Poets House NYC
— 2025 —
Interview, Triskelion (Winter 2025), Carlow University MFA Program
Zephyr Press publishes October 2025 my NEA-supported translation of Catalan poet Anna Gual’s Unnameable.
“Fracassar Millor” / “Fail Better” World Literature Today, Editor Michelle M. Johnson
Poetry International Online (Spring 2025), Editor Blas Falconer, Translations of “Seed I,” “Seed II,” and “Clay” by Anna Gual
Modern Poetry in Translation Podcast featuring poetry and translation from MPT Your Language Anticipating Mine: Focus on Catalan, hosted by Ronald Puppo
— 2024 —
Residency Faberllull / Olot, Catalunya
For work on my poetry manuscript, tongue.s as well as on Unnameable
Finalist, Hopkins Review Translation Contest with translations of Anna Gual’s work
Ramon Llull Institute, European Literary Festival, Translation of Anna Gual poems for ELF 2024
Sant Jordi Festival USA 2024:
Two presentations: one with Anna Gual; one on Lola Anglada i Sarriera
Work from Unnameable
Modern Poetry in Translation, Special Issue on Catalan Poetry, Editor Janani Ambikapathy
Translation of two poems by Anna Gual
Four Way Review (August 2024)
Translation of two poems by Anna Gual
Have a listen to Renec / Profanity in my translation into English, part of Unnameable—
A Proclamation for Peace
OSTI & Poet Laureate of Oregon
Translation into Esperanto & Catalan, the latter in collaboration with Jaume C. Pons Alorda, and recorded by Anna Gual, as well as curation of Icelandic and Latin versions by Kári Tulnius and Simona Mancini, respectively, of Kim Stafford’s A Proclamation for Peace, for book: A Proclamation for Peace, Translated for the World
— 2023 —
August
Circumference (Summer 2023)
Translation of three of Anna Gual’s poems from Unnamable
Ara article by journalist Carla Fajardo Martín on Catalan literature on the international scene, for which I was interviewed as a translator of Catalan.
June
Poetry magazine (June 2023)
Translation of two poems by Anna Gual
Trinity College, Dublin, under the auspices of Carlow University’s MFA low-residency program: Anna Gual & I presented our work.
Interview with Anna Gual in Ara by journalist Carla Fajardo Martín on our Dublin presentation and the fact that Anna is the third Catalan poet whose work was published in Poetry’s over 100-year history.
April
Write on, Door County (WI)
Translation residency
Sant Jordi Festival USA 2023:
Translations and readings of works by Anna Gual, by Anna Gual and myself, as well as a short video on my work on the life & work of Cebrià Montoliu
April 26: 4pm (CMontoliu)
April 27: 2h30pm (AGual)
— 2022—
December
Contra Mundum Press’ Hyperion (December 2022), a special edition with a focus on Catalan Literature, Editor Rainer J. Hanshe
Translations of a portfolio of poems from Unnameable, by Catalan poet, Anna Gual, as well as excerpts I translated from Cebrià Montoliu’s study of the life and work of Walt Whitman
Fall
“Translation Magic,” essay featured in Carlow University’s MFA Review, The Triskelion
July
Omniglots Series, Harvard Review (July 2022), Editor Chloe Garcia Roberts
Translations of four of Anna Gual’s poems and an introduction to them
April
American Literary Translation Association: ALTA45 Bilingual Reading Series: Multigenre Potpourri: AKaiser with Anna Gual, and Others
January
NEA: National Endowment for the Humanities Translation Fellow 2022 for my translation of the work of Catalan poet, Anna Gual: Unnameable
Alas Verdes Translation: Work-in-Progress Translation Reading
@AlasTranslation
ATLAS ViceVersa Fellow for Translation Workshop / Arles, France
Atelier ViceVersa anglais/français 2020
Aguascalientes Literary Festival 2019 / Aguascalientes, Mexico
—Panel, alongside poet Javier Acosta Escareño: Whitman in Catalan & Spanish Translations
—Workshop: Whitman, Roma, Translation & Friendship
Collaborating with Irakli Kakabadze, poet, performance artist, human rights activist: a collection of poems & prose by contemporary Georgian authors
Walt Whitman Conference & Symposium / Dortmund, Germany
— Presentation: Cebrià Montoliu: Catalan urbanista, Whitman translator (& US utopian)
—Workshop: Whitman in Translation…into Arabic, Catalan, German, Italian, Spanish
— 2020 —
April
Sant Jordi NYC Book Festival
Organized by Mary Ann Newman
With funding through the Farragut Fund for Catalan Culture in the U.S.
–As Poet and translated poet: Horse Behavior & some of its translations, with commentary, by Translators Ae Hee Lee, Dean Thomas Ellis, Giorgi Svanidze & Reader of Francesc Parcerias’ translation of the poem: Laura Batllori
–As Translator: my translations of Anna Gual’s poems
–As Curator: including participation by Jaume C. Pons Alorda, Forrest Gander & Claudia Prado
fellowships & prizes
NEA: National Endowment for the Humanities Translation Fellow 2022 for my translation of the work of Catalan poet, Anna Gual: Unnameable
ATLAS Vice Versa Translation Workshop, 2020 Fellow. Arles, France
French Voices: Grant Recipient
Finalist: UN St Jerome translation contest (Spanish)
Finalist: Florence Gould/French-American Foundation Translation Award
A Wall in Palestine, by René Backmann (Fayard (2006) / Gallimard Folio (2008) / Picador, (2010))
Reviewed in the LA Times
current projects
— CATALAN —
Anna Gual, poet: Unnameable: a collected works
Cebrià Montoliu (Palma, 1873 – Albuquerque, 1923): biography and translation of this Catalan urbanista, city-garden advocate, utopian and translator’s critical work of Ruskin, Emerson, and Whitman, including his book length analysis of Walt Whitman’s work (1913) – the first of its erudition in the Iberian world, perhaps, too, in all romance languages – a work never before translated into English
— FRENCH —
The work of Elsa Triolet
— SPANISH —
Work of Javier Acosta Esacareño, Mexican poet
Work of Bertha María Inzunza Choza, Mexican poet
Work of Anahi Mariluan, Mapuche theorist, musician and poet