Two University of Arkansas Scholars Win Awards From the National Endowment for the Arts

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From left, Kaveh Bassiri and Oksana Maksymchuk.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Last week, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Kaveh Bassiri and Oksana Maksymchuk will receive Literature Translation Fellowships of $12,500 each. Bassiri, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature, and Maksymchuk, an assistant professor in the Philosophy Department, are two of 25 translators nationwide to win the prestigious literary prize for 2019.

Kaveh Bassiri's award will support the translation from the Persian of a collection of poems by Iranian poet Roya Zarrin. The poetry of Roya Zarrin (b. 1972) explores not only her own experiences growing up in a time of war but also the daily difficulties faced by Iranian women. She writes about love, marriage, divorce, and motherhood, as well as about violence, revolution, religion, oppression, and patriarchy.

The poems shift among the realms of the mythical, spiritual, personal, and political. They include proclamations, prayers, confessions, chants, pleadings, praise, and protests. The narrator sometimes invokes spiritual texts, such as the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, with a particular fondness for the Book of Revelation.

The translated collection will include poems from two of Zarrin's multi-award-winning volumes: I Want to Swallow My Children and Pleasant Tricks of April. This translation will be one of the first English language books from a post-revolution Iranian poet.

Oksana Maksymchuk's award will support the translation from the Ukrainian of an anthology of selected poems by Marianna Kiyanovska. Kiyanovska (b. 1973) is one of the best-known writers and influential women in Ukraine's cultural sphere. This proposed anthology will draw on the poems Kiyanovska wrote between 2013 and 2017, a turbulent time of conflict in Ukraine.

Kiyanovska became actively involved with humanitarian efforts then, regularly visiting hospitals and shelters in occupied regions and overseeing the distribution of necessities as well as books; she also hosted a refugee in her own home. Her poems from this period reflect these complex emotional experiences.

Both award recipients are established translators and poets in their own right.

Bassiri is a recipient of the Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency and the Sturgis International Fellowship. His translations have been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Guernica, Colorado Review, Two Line Online, and the Massachusetts Review. His own poetry has won the Bellingham Review's 49th Parallel Award and been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, and Best New Poets 2011.

Maksymchuk has published two award-winning books of poetry in the Ukrainian language, and most recently, a co-edited anthology Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017), a scholarly volume of translations supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities grant of $72,500 in 2016. Her English-language poems appeared in the Prairie Schooner, New Orleans Review, Salamander, Cimarron Review, The Common, and elsewhere. Her translations from Ukrainian and Russian have appeared in such publications as the Best European Fiction series, London Magazine, Words Without Borders, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Poetry International, and won first place in the 2004 Richmond Lattimore and in 2014 Joseph Brodsky-Stephen Spender translation competitions.

"The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support these 25 new projects, building on more than 35 years of funding literature translation," said NEA acting Chair Mary Anne Carter. "Translation not only provides American readers with access to many of the world's most talented and respected writers, but through the skill and creativity of the authors and translators, readers can explore new and often unique perspectives and experiences."

Click here for the full list of fiscal year 2019 Literature Translation Fellows, along with information about their projects. These awards are pending Congressional approval of the NEA's fiscal year 2019 budget.

About the National Endowment for the Arts: Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America's rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. For more information, visit the NEA at arts.gov.