Join us for the launch of Scattered Love by Maylis Besserie translated by Clíona Ni Ríordáin.
'She came in like a shadow. She slid and bore herself into my eye, between my eyelids which blinked against the dust.' She is Maud Gonne, the muse of writer William Butler Yeats. Yeats here returns as a ghost, after having been buried in France in 1939 in the cemetery of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, to be returned to Ireland a decade later. He emerges from his grave to recount his thwarted love with Maud, a story that merges with that of the independence movement of Ireland, of which they were both emblematic actors. Yeats' ghost has suddenly arisen because diplomatic documents long kept secret have resurfaced, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back into Ireland for a state funeral.
Maylis Besserie was born in Bordeaux and now lives in Paris. She works as a producer for the radio channel France Culture. Besserie's connection with Ireland started when her family sent her to spend summers in Ireland to learn English. Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le Tiers Temps) was her first novel and won Le Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, 2020.
Cliona Ni Riordain is professor of Translation Studies at the Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, France. She co-directs the Atelier POEM and teaches a postgraduate seminar on "Traduction: Pouvoir et Marges", which examines questions of power and marginality in a variety of intercultural contexts. She has co-edited and co-translated three bilingual poetry anthologies. Her translation of Michel Deons Horseman, Pass By! was published in 2017 (Lilliput Press, Dublin). Stephanie Schwerter is professor of Anglophone literature at the Universite Polytechnique Hauts-de-France. Previously, she taught Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Before moving to France, she spent six years in Northern Ireland, working at the University of Ulster and at Queens University Belfast.
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