Please join us for a discussion and reading of Camilo Pessanha's poetry by the translator Adam Mahler, in conversation with Bruno Carvalho.

Camilo Pessanha (1867—1926) was a Portuguese writer who spent much of his adult life in Macau, a Portuguese colonial enclave at the time. The author of Clepsydra, an enigmatic collection of poems, Pessanha was a key figure in Portuguese modernism, emulated and admired by writers like Fernando Pessoa. The translator Adam Mahler will present his new translation of Clepsydra and discuss the work’s history and significance to Portuguese literature, as well as the translation process. This bilingual event will include readings in both Portuguese and English.

Adam Mahler is a writer and translator of Spanish and Portuguese poetry. His first book of translations, Camilo Pessanha's Clepsydra and Other Poems, was published by University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Press. His translation of Luz Pichel's Cativa en su lughar (A Daughter in His Stead), for which he was awarded a PEN/Heim 2022 Translation Fund Grant, will be published by Deep Vellum, and his translation of the Ibero-Jewish poet Shem Tov Ardutiel’s Moral Proverbs is forthcoming with Harvard University Press.

Bruno Carvalho’s research and teaching include relationships between literature, culture, and the built environment, with a focus in the Portuguese-speaking world. He often works on cities as lived and imagined spaces. Carvalho has published widely on topics related to poetry, film, architecture, cartography, city planning, and migration. He is the author of, among others, Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro. Currently, he is finishing a book called The Invention of the Future: A Transatlantic History of Urbanization, on the experiences and aspirations of city dwellers and urban planners, from the 1750s onward. Carvalho is a Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, where he also co-directs the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. He is a Rio de Janeiro native, and a resident of Cambridge, MA.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Funded by The Manuel Rogers, Sr. & Mary R. Rogers Endowment Fund.