The Light That Burns Us (World Poetry, 2024) is the English-language debut of Jazra Khaleed, one of Greece’s most radical poetic voices. It is an unapologetic indictment of the wrongs faced by immigrants, by a rudderless young European generation, and by leftist activists in a Greece and a Europe blighted by neoliberal policies of deregulation and privatization. Edited by Karen Van Dyck, the book is translated from the Greek by Peter Constatine, Viktoras Iliopoulos, Sarah McCann, Jason Rigas, Max Ritvo, Angelos Sakkis, Josephine Simple, Brian Sneeden, and Karen Van Dyck, with a preface by Peter Constantine.  Welcome by Dimitri Gondicas. Introduction by Kathleen Crown, Humanities Council.

About the Poet:

Jazra Khaleed is an Athens-based poet, translator, and filmmaker whose works focus on issues of working-class experiences and cultures, homeland and origin, immigration and war, and are an indictment of racism, social injustice, and classism in contemporary Greece. English translations of his poems have appeared in The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of the Athenian magazine Teflon. The Light That Burns Us is the first book of his poetry to appear in English translation.

Respondent: Chloe Howe Haralambous, Society of Fellows, Humanities Council, and Department of Comparative Literature

Presented by the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies. Cosponsored by the Humanities Council.