Interviews
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David Albahari – Words are Something Else
DAVID ALBAHARI (1948), a writer and translator from Yugoslavia, moved to Canada in 1994. He has published seven collections of short stories and seven novels in Serbian. His book Opis smrti (Description of Death) won the Ivo Andric Award for the best collection of short stories in Yugoslavia in 1982, and his novel Mamac (The Bait), won the NIN Award for the best novel in Yugoslavia in 1996. His books have been translated into fourteen languages. A selection of his stories in English translation, entitled Words Are Something Else, was published in 1996 by Northwestern University Press. The English translation of Tsing was published in 1997 by Bayeux Arts, Calgary.…
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George Melnyk – Literary History
interview by: paulo da costa and Nelson Wight George Melnyk, considered an authority on regionalism, has published seven non-fiction books dealing with Western Canada. His most recent titles include The Urban Prairie, Beyond Alienation and Riel to Reform. He has just published the first volume of the Literary History of Alberta. In the 1970s he founded the NeWest Review and the NeWest Press in Edmonton and went on to become the executive director of the Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts. Filling Station talked to George Melnyk the week preceding the April launch of his Literary History of Alberta. paulo da costa: What inspired you to tackle a…
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Ulrikka S. Gernes – Poetry As a Language of Resistance
Ulrikka S. Gernes was born in Sweden to Danish parents and spent most of her childhood in Sweden. She has travelled extensively in Europe and Asia and now lives in Copenhagen. Her work has been highly acclaimed in Denmark since the publication of her first collection Natsvaermer (Moth) in 1984 when she was 18. She has published eight further collections. Her first book published in Canada: A Sudden Sky is a selection of her work translated by Patrick Friesen and Per Brask. paulo da costa: You were born to a family of artists. Your father was a renowned Danish painter. How did that childhood atmosphere influence your artistic sensibility?…
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Fernando Aguiar – Visual Poetry
Fernando Aguiar has published five anthologies of Visual Poetry and contributed to over thirty international anthologies worldwide. In the last twenty years he has participated in hundreds of individual and collective exhibitions, as well as poetic performances. paulo da costa interviewed him this winter in Lisbon, Portugal. paulo da costa: What inspired the use old illustrations in your recent work of Visual Poetry? Fernando Aguiar: Fifteen years ago I found a bunch of old magazines with fine quality illustrations. They had been passed down from my grandfather to my father and eventually to me. I loved the illustrations. Beautiful wood cut prints impeccably pressed. It would have taken months…
