My Tunisian Trip

If I haven’t been posting much lately, it’s partly because I’ve had a perfect storm of deadlines – I had to send my first draft of Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind our Picture Books to my publishers, my TS Eliot shortlist to the other judges AND the autumn issue of MPT to the typesetter this week!!!

It’s also, I must admit, because I’m not on Facebook any more. This is partly because I think they are morally vile, so don’t see why they should make money off my writing (was hearing only last night how hate speech against the Rohingya has mainly been spread in Myanmar on Facebook), but it is also an attempt to cut down on social media. I’ve always told myself I’m on social media for professional reasons, and as most professional stuff is now on Twitter I realised I was just lurking on Facebook for the gossip and arguments.

Still, I have to admit that, although I’ve barely missed it at all, the events calendar was kind of useful, and Facebook was also the main place my blogs got shared and commented on. Writing them now feels a bit like talking into a void…

Anyway, since I last blogged I’ve been to Tunisia, helping run translation workshops with the British Council for their Majaaz project – we are hoping to have a fabulous Maghrebian issue of MPT next summer. I didn’t explore much as we worked very intensely, but the place where we did the workshops was stunning – all rugs and art and cacti, and the food was amazing: these salads with fruit in them, like tomato and peach, and melon and cucumber, and seafood, brik, crepes, spicy eggs, prickly pear, homemade olive oil, tiny honeyed cakes, mint tea... The company was also lovely, and there was sea swimming, and lots of poetry chat late into the night, and the smallest tortoise I’ve ever seen.

 

Whilst you’re here, if you’re in London I should flag a really lovely MPT event coming up, celebrating Ted Hughes’ Translations, on October the 10th with the amazing Tara Bergin, Zaffar Kunial and Polly Clark. It’s FREE but you need to book here.

This month I’ll also be at the National Poetry Day Future of Translation Summit, the Winchester Poetry Festival, and Aldeburgh Festival – their lovely brochure is out now, do check it out. MPT will be launching our new issue ‘In a Winter City: Focus on Hungary and Ted Hughes’ there, with readers including George Szirtes, and also involved in a seminar on translating LGBTQ poetry with Kostyra Tsolakis, where we’ll try and make a new translation of Vassilis Amanatdis.