Visiting poet: Nhã Thuyên 

We are very happy to welcome to Mayflower Bookshop Vietnamese poet Nhã Thuyên, this year’s Poet in Residence at the 52nd edition of Poetry International (June 10 – 12). Since its first edition in 1970, the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam has grown into one of the biggest poetry festivals in the world. For several days, you can listen to some of the best poets in the world, read their poems and participate in debates and special programmes.

Nhã Thuyên was appointed lecturer in Vietnamese literature at the University of Hanoi in 2012, on the basis of her dissertation on four activist Vietnamese poets, but after a wave of propaganda prompted by the tightening of the country’s political regime she was fired in 2014, and she was stripped of her Master’s title. This simply served to strengthen the critical attitude she had already revealed in her ideas and in her writing. Nhã Thuyên chooses a very wide range of subjects and perspectives. Often an attempt to get a grip on a situation in an everyday environment, amidst a flow of associations, by acting, speaking and by responding to and reflecting on the risks of that action. Her poems also express a longing to be boundless and intangible. The language is playful, dynamic and gives the poems momentum, producing a gripping result of insistent poetic quality. Her poems have been translated into English by Kaitlin Rees.

Nhã Thuyên will be interviewed by Mayflower Bookshop’s Freek Bouricius, after which she will recite some of her poems. The afternoon will conclude with a signing session and afterparty. A must for every poetry lover!

June 26 – 16.00 – Mayflower Bookshop XTRA

*This event will be entirely in English

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