Synopsis
Chus Pato is the leading contemporary poet in Galicia. All of her work is written in the Galician language (Galego), but contrary perhaps to one's expectations of work written in what is a minority language, and one also long-repressed, her work is avant-garde, postmodern, and reflects the author's Marxist beliefs as well as her belief in the necessity of independence for Galicia. This is a radical poetry that, despite its remote origins and its concern with the local, can speak powerfully across borders and languages.
About the Authors
Chus Pato was born in 1955 in Ourense, Galicia (north-west Spain). All of her work is written in Galician, a language which is closely related to both Spanish and Portuguese. She teaches History and Geography at a high school in the interior of Galicia. In her words: "writing metabolizes the world, even that world that cannot be absorbed into writing." And: "I have a predilection for those constructions which investigate the possibility of a language-thinking that refuses to repeat the already-written and lives in contact-lamination with the seams of the unsayable, of what hasn't yet been written into the corporeality of the poem." "To me, the poem is a freedom-machine." "My autobiography? It does not always seem to be mine; sometimes I would rather have other lives. Insofar as all autobiography participates in fiction, I prefer not to be forced to choose, so I opt not to have one." Her work: 'Urania' (Calpurnia, Ourense, 1991), 'Heloísa' (Espiral Maior, A Coruña, 1994), Fascinio ('Toxosoutos', Santiago de Compostela, 1995), 'Nínive', (Xerais, Vigo, 1996), 'A ponte das poldras' (Noitarenga, Santiago de Compostela, 1996), 'm-Talá', (Xerais, Vigo, 2000), 'Charenton' (Xerais, Vigo, 2003), and a selection translated into Spanish by Irís Cochón: 'Un Ganges de palabras' (Puerta del Mar, Málaga, 2003). Politically engaged, Chus Pato is a member of Redes escarlata, a leftist cultural group that supports independence, as well as PEN Galicia.
Erín Moure was born in Calgary, Alberta. She studied briefly at the University of Calgary and at the University of British Columbia in her early twenties, but is largely self-taught. She received an honorary doctorate (D.Lit.) from Brandon University in 2008 in recognition of her contributions to poetry. Her first collection of poetry, Empire, 'York Street' (1979), was a finalist for the Governor General's Award, as were 'Search Procedures' (1996), 'O Cidadán' (2002) and 'Little Theatres' (2005). Her third volume, 'Domestic Fuel' (1985), was awarded the Pat Lowther Prize. Her 1988 collection of poetry, 'Furious', won the Governor General's Award that year. Three of her works have been finalists for the Griffin Prize; two were translations - 'Sheep's Vigil' and 'Notebook of Roses and Civilization' (the latter translated with Robert Majzels)-and one was her own work, 'Little Theatres'. Moure lives in Montreal and works as a freelance commercial translator, and occasionally teaches creative writing.
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