Voices from the Edges of Europe: A Reading & Conversation with Ani Gjika and Gazmend Kapllani

Ani Gjika is an Albanian-born poet, literary translator, teacher, and author of Bread on Running Waters (Fenway Press, 2013). Her honors include awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, English PEN, the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, and the Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize. Gjika will read from her own work as well as from her recent translation from the Albanian of Negative Space by Luljeta Lleshanaku (New Directions, 2018).

Gazmend Kapllani is an Albanian-born journalist, poet, and writer. His works of fiction explore how totalitarianism, immigration, borders, and Balkan history have shaped private lives and personal narratives. He received his PhD in political science and history from Panteion University in Athens (where he lived for over twenty years). Kapllani currently lives in Boston and teaches Creative Writing and European History at Emerson College. In 2012, he was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. He will read from the English translation of his first novel, A Short Border Handbook (New Europe Books, 2017).

Co-sponsored by the BU Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking and the literary journal AGNI. A book-signing will follow the event.