Poet and essayist Tommi Parkko talks about his modernist tendencies, the difficulties of writing long-form poems in the post-post-modern age, and how mythology helps him get in touch with the “unspoken mental history” of a society.
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In this interview writer Easterine Kire discusses the psychological effects of the occupation of her native Nagaland (India), the important (and endangered) art of spoken word, and the power of folklore to preserve peace.
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In this interview Petrova talks about St. Petersburg’s cosmopolitanism, Russia’s problems with forgotten history, and the out-of-body experience of good translation.
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In this interview Raymund Ryan and Irish writer Dermot Bolger take us through the many phases of Dublin—through architecture, literature, politics, and history. Bolger tells the story of his youth in Ireland founding Raven Arts Press, his experiences with Irish censorship, and how in the 80s an eyesore became a haven for the arts.
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In this interview, poet Hind Shoufani talks about her parents’ roles as Palestinian activists in the 70s and 80s, her new film on the same subject, and the complications (and benefits) of being a poet who doesn’t call herself one.
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In this interview, Liao Yiwu talks to Maxine Case about his books, his struggles with the Chinese government, and related a few anecdotes about people on the fringe of Chinese society that he has interviewed and whose stories he had recorded.
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In this interview, Yu Kwang-chung talks about the tradition of Chinese literature, immortality, the joys and complications of sourcing multiple languages, and the contradiction of being known as a “patriotic” poet in China.
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