Pictures, Panels, and Performance

27 September 2024 | 19:30 Uhr

ACC Galerie
Burgplatz 1 + 2
99423 Weimar

Translating poetic language in non-lyrical formats: Comics are funny, prose is long. And neither are poems. Or are they? What happens when the comic is poetically written and the narrative is rapped and recited? Henning Bochert and Myriam Alfano discuss the parallels in translating poetic elements in comics and prose. Alfano presents excerpts from Gianni Pacinotti’s Momenti straordinari con applausi finti, Bochert passages from The 14th Tale by Inua Ellams.

Myriam Alfano is a literary translator and freelance lecturer. She has been translating Italian and Spanish fiction and graphic novels for over fifteen years and runs translation workshops. As a member of the Weltlesebühne, she is committed to inspiring as many readers as possible to translate.

Foto: Markus Püttmann

Henning Bochert, born in Wuppertal, graduated in drama from the Berlin University of the Arts and works as an author, freelance lecturer, dramaturge and literary translator for English and German in Berlin. He runs a translation agency and is involved with Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V. , the Weltlesebühne, and other organisations.

Foto: Graham Hains

Gianni Pacinotti, known as Gipi, exploits the poetic possibilities of the ninth art like no other. His work Una Storia is the first comic to be nominated for Italy’s most important literary prize, the Premio Strega. Momenti Straordinati was also among the nominees in 2020. Pacinotti also writes screenplays and directs.

Inua Ellams, living in London and born in Nigeria, is a poet, playwright, performer and graphic designer. His texts are often autobiographical and deal with topics like identity, masculinity, homosexuality, and social norms. He performs his own monologues, his theater texts are staged in England and the U.S., his poems are published in Poetry Paper, Magma, Pen International, Wasafiri and Oxford Poetry, Poetry Review and Poetry, among others.

Previous guests in this series: Mirko Kraetsch, Drama Panorama, Miriam Mandelkow

Produced by Weltlesebühne e. V. and the ACC Galerie