News Archive

Glanfa, Wales Millennium Centre
Wednesday 19 October 7.00 pm
Free entry

Don’t miss the chance to hear poetry from Afghanistan and Somaliland as the Poetry Translation Centre’s World Poets’ Tour stops off in Cardiff.  Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ’Gaarriye’, one of the most important Somali poets since the 1970s, and Partaw Naderi, one of the leading modernist poets in Afghanistan, will be accompanied by translator and director of the Poetry Translation Centre, Sarah Maguire.  Hosted by James Byrne, poet and editor.

The Poetry Translation Centre’s World Poets’ Tour runs throughout October, as six poets from Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Somaliland and Sudan travel through ten different cities within the UK, giving readings and workshops at some of the leading poetry and literature festivals in the country.  Alongside the tour the Poetry Translation Centre will produce a multi–lingual anthology featuring the work of these six leading poets, and the translations from their UK counterparts.

For more information on the World Poets’ Tour and the Poetry Translation Centre visit www.poetrytranslation.soas.ac.uk

Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ’Gaarriye’ was born in 1949 in Hargeysa, where he still lives.  From the 1970s onwards, he has been one of the most important Somali poets, composing on a great variety of topics from nuclear weapons to Nelson Mandela. In addition to his poetic output, Gaarriye also produced the first ever account of the metrical patterns of Somali poetry in a series of articles in the national newspaper in 1976. Gaarriye is from Somaliland. He writes in Somali, and is translated by Martin Orwin and David Harsent.

Partaw Naderi was born in Badakhshan, a northern province of Afghanistan, in 1953.  He was imprisoned in the notorious Pul-e-Charki prison by the Soviet-backed regime for three years in the 1970s shortly after he’d begun to write poetry. He is now widely regarded as one of the leading modernist poets in Afghanistan, the lyrical intensity of his work, coupled with his bold use of free verse, distinguishing him as a highly original and important poet. After years in exile, he recently returned to live in Kabul where he is president of Afghan PEN. He is translated by Yama Yari and Sarah Maguire.