August 10, 2011 Libyan-born (and University of Tennessee-educated) poet Khaled Mattawa has been in the news often during the last six months, thanks to his activism on behalf of the nascent Libyan revolution. Today he is back in the news for a more literary reason. The PEN American Center, the largest branch of the world’s oldest literary and human-rights organization, announced that he has won the 2011 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. The award, which carries a stipend of $3,000, is given annually to a book-length translation of poetry into English. Mattawa won for Adonis: Selected Poems (Yale University Press, 2010). To read the announcement from PEN, click here.
Chapter 16 has been closely following Mattawa’s interviews and essays about the Libyan revolution. Click here to read more about his public statements on events in his homeland, and here to read an original poem about the revolution.
For more updates on Tennessee authors, please visit Chapter 16’s News & Notes page, here.
Tagged: Poetry
