We’re delighted to welcome award-winning Greek poet Phoebe Giannisi and translator Brian Sneeden for the launch of GOATSONG (Fitzcarraldo Editions). The event will include a bilingual poetry performance, along with a Q&A.

The ancient Greek word for tragedy (τραγωδία) is a compound of the words goat (τράγος) and song (ᾠδή). Spanning 15 years of composition, GOATSONG is the culmination of Giannisi’s vision of Chimeric Poetics: an evocative and ambitious polyphonic exploration of desire, ecology, myth and motherhood that firmly establishes her contribution as an original feminist posthuman voice in contemporary poetry. From Homer to Donna Haraway, Derrida to state archives, klephtic ballads and rebetiko, to Parmenides and Giannisi’s dog, Ivan, the many human and animal voices of Giannisi’s poems form an incantatory lyricism and layered engagement unique in international literature.

Translator Brian Sneeden is a senior lecturer at Manchester Met and organiser of the Manchester Translation Series. His translations of Giannisi’s poetry have received the World Literature Today Translation Award, the Elizabeth Constantinides Translation Prize and have been shortlisted for the National Translation Award in Poetry and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. GOATSONG is the first poetry collection in translation published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.