Kazim Ali gives a lecture on “Intentional Mistranslation: Locating the Transnational and Polylingual in Anglophone Postcolonial Writing,” in which he discusses language, borders, identity, and the ways in which translation complicates or is complicated by these concepts.
Ali’s books include several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre text Bright Felon. His novels include the recently published The Secret Room: A String Quartet and among his books of essays is Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.
Ali is associate professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College. His new book of poems, Inquisition, and a new hybrid memoir, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies, will be released in 2018. He is the translator of books by Marguerite Duras, Sohrab Sepehri, Mahmoud Chokrollahi, and Ananda Devi, as well as poems by Cristina Peri Rossi, Henri N’Kuomo, Ahmed Faraz, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. His work also appears in NER 38.1.