Hanging Loose Press and Queens College MFA Program in Creative

March 8, 2012 | Queens College

? QC Grad Student Anne Posten Wins Prize: Publication of Her Translation Project ?

?FLUSHING, NY, March 8, 2012 ? Getting published for the first time is a struggle for many translators. But Anne Posten?a student in the Queens College Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation?will have a book in print this spring, a year before she receives her degree. She?s the inaugural winner of the Loose Translation Series, an annual publication award co-sponsored by Hanging Loose Press and the QC MFA program.

Open to Queens MFA students or alumni, the series encourages literary and cultural exchange by publishing innovative work from around the world. Proposed by the college?s creative writing faculty, the series is in sync with the MFA Program?s unique literary translation track and the college?s global vision, and adds to the publisher?s growing list of translations.

?Our MFA program is producing students and graduates whose work often comes from languages and literary traditions quite dissimilar from our own,? says poet Kimiko Hahn, Distinguished Professor of English and MFA faculty member. ?We believe that their translations deserve to be in print?The goal of this new partnership is to publish work that emphasizes the importance of something that often really does get ?lost in translation?: the world?s diversity of cultures and the people who create and foster them.?

Posten took the prize with her original translation of Der Sch?ne Ort (This Beautiful Place), a recent novella by acclaimed German playwright Tankred Dorst, who is best known for his plays influenced by the theatre of the absurd. The Astoria resident, a Maryland native, was captivated by the book as an undergraduate German major at Oberlin College. ?I read it and instantly fell in love,? says Posten, who met Dorst, still vital at 87, and his life partner Ursula Ehler in Munich this January. On entering the MFA Program, she knew that translating it would be a major creative project for her.

?The book has been a pleasure and a challenge to translate, and I am thrilled to be the first winner of this? prize,? says Posten. ?Since my first reading of This Beautiful Place, I have believed that Dorst?s work needs to be shared with the English-speaking world.?

Hanging Loose began in 1966 as a literary journal printed on loose pages.?The press has since published both the magazine as well as books by such award-winning writers as Ha Jin, Sherman Alexie, Jayne Cortez, Chuck Wachtel, D. Nurkse, and Maggie Nelson.

The Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, introduced in fall 2007, is the newest of CUNY?s MFA Programs. Directed by poet Nicole Cooley, it is only one of two in the country to include literary translation as a parallel track?a reflection of the international atmosphere of the campus and its home borough. Faculty members are all award-winning writers dedicated to teaching. Students also benefit from access to the wider arts community that is New York City. For more information, visit www.qc.cuny.edu/Creative_Writing

For more about Queens College visit http://www.qc.cuny.edu/Pages/default.aspx Phyllis Cohen Stevens
Deputy Director of News Services
718-997-5590
phyllis.cohen-stevens@qc.cuny.edu

Contact:

Maria Matteo
Assistant Director of News Services
718-997-5593
maria.matteo@qc.cuny.edu

Source: http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2012/03/08/hanging-loose-press-and-queens-college-mfa-program-in-creative-writing-and-literary-translation-launch-annual-award/

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