Carmen Bugan discusses how political repression and escaping persecution have influenced her writing and her views on language. Her lecture looks at several consequences of politics on the artistic process and argues for the necessity of addressing the larger, timeless issues such as suffering, hope, and love, rather than adopting a partisan politics in one’s literary work. In portraying the effects of turbulent politics on individual lives, literature has a unique opportunity to ponder and celebrate our humanity. It can counteract the manipulative language of propaganda by drawing from the rich resources of a language that is able to sustain us through moments of political upheaval. Please use the "To Register" link below.

Biography:
Bugan was born in 1970 in Romania and has since lived in the US, Ireland, England, and France. She is the author of three collections of poems: Crossing the Carpathians (Oxford Poets/Carcanet), The House of Straw (Shearsman), and Releasing the Porcelain Birds (Shearsman); as well as the memoir Burying the Typewriter and the critical study Séamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile. Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan and Oxford University, UK, where she obtained a doctorate in English literature. Her essays, reviews, and poems appear in publications such as PEN, the TLS, Modern Poetry in Translation, PN Review, Harvard Review, and the BBC Magazine. In 2017 Carmen was made a George Orwell Prize Fellow. She teaches at the Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC and lives in Long Island, NY.

From the Pan MacMillan Blog:
"Being an immigrant writer in American today" ~ "At 2 a.m. on 10 March 1983, Carmen Bugan's father left the family home, alone. That afternoon, Carmen returned from school to find secret police in her living room. Her father's protest against the regime had changed her life forever. This is her story."

"One of the most telling insights I've read about life under communism...warm and humane." ~Observer