LAS Distinguished Professor Talk and Reception: Daniel Borzutzky

Talk title: How They Wrote Certain Of My Books: The Infinite Catastrophes Of Translation

Daniel Borzutzky, LAS Distinguished Professor of English and Latin American and Latino Studies, writes poetry and fiction and is a Spanish-language translator. His most recent books of poetry are: “The Murmuring Grief of the Americas,” “Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018,” “Lake Michigan,” and “The Performance of Becoming Human.”

His most recent translations include Elvira Hernández’s “Bodies Found in Various Places,” Cecilia Vicuña’s “The Deer Book,” Paula Ilabaca Núñez’s “The Loose Pearl,” Galo Ghigliotto’s “Valdivia,” and Raúl Zurita’s “The Country of Planks.” Professor Borzutzky’s awards and recognitions include the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry, the 2024 Chicago Review of Books Best Poetry Book Award, the 2023 PEN Award for Literature in Translation and the 2017 National Translation Award, among others. His recent work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the PEN/HEIM Translation Fund, and the Neubauer Collegium at the University of Chicago.

At UIC, Borzutzky directs the Center for Latinx Literature of the Americas, a programming hub for literature and art of the Americas, and he is a co-PI for Crossing Latinidades, a national consortium supporting graduate students and scholars in Latinx humanities. Additionally, he is a founding artistic director of the “Lit and Luz Festival,” a collaboration between writers and artists from Chicago and Mexico. He has presented his work in Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Spain and South Africa. He has served as an editor at the independent press Kenning Editions, Make Magazine and Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas.

His forthcoming poetry collection “Pain Blank/Blank Book” will be published by Coffee House Press in 2027. He is working on a collection of short fiction and a translation of “In Memoriam” by Raúl Zurita, among other projects.

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