- Source: Astrid Alben
Astrid Alben is a Dutch-born British poet, editor and translator. She is the author of several poetry collections, and her poems have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Maltese, Slovene and Romanian. Alben often appears at literary festivals throughout Europe, including the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival.
Alben was the co-founder and artistic director of the arts and sciences initiative PARS (Atlas of Creative Thinking) between 2002 and 2018, curating site-specific events which combined theatre, art installations and scientific experiments, in spaces including the Serpentine Galleries and Central Saint Martins in London, and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She was elected chair of Poetry London in 2021 and is Commissioning Editor for Literature in Translation for Prototype Publishing.
Biography
Alben was born in Loosdrecht, the Netherlands, and was raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and Hawkhurst, Kent, where she attended Cranbrook Grammar School. Abandoning a law degree at Leiden University, she switched to studying English literature and philosophy at Edinburgh University. She divides her time between London and Amsterdam and is married to the British poet Philip Hancock.
Works
Alben is the author of four collections of poetry, not all in English. Ai! Ai! Pianissimo appeared in 2011, Plainspeak in 2019, and Little Dead Rabbit in 2022, a collection she self-translated into Dutch and published with PoëzieCentrum in 2021 as Klein dood Konjin; there were further translations through small press outlets Broken Sleep and Arc. She also curated and edited the anthology series Findings on... and curates site-specific events combining theatre, art installations, and scientific experiments. Her poems, reviews, and essays have been featured in many outlets, including The Times Literary Supplement (on themes such as Brexit), Granta and Poetry Review. Her poetic approach is innovative and experimental, often involving unpunctuated stream of consciousness writing that is "supple and precise".
= Books
=2011: Alben, Astrid (2011). Ai ! Ai ! pianissimo. Todmorden, England: Arc. ISBN 978-1-906570-73-6.
2019: Plainspeak. Prototype.
2021: Klein dood konijn (in Dutch). poëziecentrum.
2022: Little Dead Rabbit.
= Anthologies
=2007: Findings on Ice. 2016-03-22. ISBN 978-3-03778-125-8.
2010: Findings on Elasticity. 2016-03-22. ISBN 978-3-03778-148-7.
2016: Findings on Light. 2016-05-31. ISBN 978-3-03778-490-7.
= Translations
=2022: Island mountain glacier.
Awards
Her translation of Island mountain glacier (Dutch: Eiland berg gletsjer) by Anne Vegter won an English PEN Translates Award in 2021. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Critical reception
Plainspeak was described by SPAMzine as reclaiming "the radical possibility of re-inventing ourselves through new and surprising language, which, she shows us, can be done just by speaking in the clearest, plainest form." Little Dead Rabbit, a collaboration with graphic designer Zigmunds Lapsa, was described as "an innovative combination of concrete poetry and abstract handmade die cuts."
References
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Astrid Alben
- Ágnes Lehóczky
- Back Home (Eric Clapton album)
- Murder Ballads
- Clapton Chronicles: The Best of Eric Clapton
- Me and Mr. Johnson
- Brings
- Running Up That Hill
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
- Banaroo's World
