Magda Cârneci on Her New Book in English

Distinguished author, art historian and cultural promoter Magda Cârneci discusses her new novel in English, the experimental FEM (Deep Vellum Publishing), with translator Sean Cotter and radio host Andrew Singer in a podcast to be aired on the Trafika Europe Radio online platform as part of its Middle Ground series dedicated to literature coming from Central and Eastern Europe.

You can listen to the conversation on the Trafika Europe Radio website HERE on Sunday, March 28 at 3 p.m. or anytime later on the Middle Ground series section of Trafika Europe Radio and on our Facebook and website.

Magda Cârneci is a poet, art historian, prose writer, cultural promoter and diplomat. A prominent member of Romania’s postmodern poetic movement, she has been involved in the political and cultural Romanian scene of the past 30 years, after the fall of communism in 1989. She has taken on diverse public positions: as a visiting professor at INALCO in Paris (2001-2005) and director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris (2006-2010). She is the former president of PEN Romania and a member of the European Cultural Parliament. She has written five books of poetry, several monographs and essays on art, and has contributed to many anthologies. Two of her volumes of poetry in Romanian have been translated into English: Chaosmos (Terra Incognita, 2006), A Deafening Silence (Shearsman, 2017), and others have been translated into French, German, and Dutch. (@ Radu Vacu in Poetry International Archives) 

Sean Cotter is the translator of many works of Romanian literature, including an award-winning edition of Nichita Stănescu's poetry, Wheel with a Single Spoke (Archipelago Books, 2012) and the first volume of Mircea Cărtărescu's Blinding (Archipelago Books, 2013). His study of Romanian translators, Literary Translation and the Idea of a Minor Romania (Rochester, 2014), was awarded the biennial book prize of the Society for Romanian Studies. Recipient of a PEN/Heim grant and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sean Cotter is Professor of Literature and Translation Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas. His translation of Magda Cârneci's FEM is forthcoming with Deep Vellum Publishing in March 2021.