Denisa Duran


is a Romanian poet, translator and cultural manager living in Bucharest. She was born in 1980, the daughter of a poet and a novelist. She graduated the University of Bucharest, with a BA in Romanian & English Language and Literature and a MA with a thesis about sound poetry, written in English. For accomplishing this, she was awarded a one-month research residency by the Poetry School in Vienna (Schule für Dichtung), in 2008. Her work is called Three Sound Poets Trying to Escape the Abusive Domination of the Word: Henri Chopin, Sainkho Namtchylak, Christian Ide Hintze. While conducting interviews in Vienna for this paper, she met the sound artist Bruno Pisek – with whom she further on developed not only this poetical sound performance about Bucharest, but a great friendship as well.

She worked as a journalist, translator and editor (at the Romanian Book Review) and since 2007 she is project manager at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest.

Denisa published her debut collection of poetry, Fluffy and Mechanical (Pufos şi mecanic, Vinea publishing), in 2003, and was awarded the prize for debut by the Association of Writers in Bucharest and the Romanian Writers Union, Brașov branch. Her second full collection of poems, Omul de unică folosință / Disposable People, was published by Galway Print in Ireland in 2009 (bilingual, translated into English by Florin Bican). She had a reading tour with this book in: Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin. In 2012, she published her third collection of poems, I Am Still Young (Sunt încă tânără, Tracus Arte publishing) - a selection of which was included in the anthology The Most Beautiful Poems from 2012. Most recently, she published the volume I Am Asleep, Yet Keep You Company (Dorm, dar stau cu tine, Charmides publishing, 2014) – a book about becoming until the oge of one, which includes illustrations by the artist Floarea Țuțuianu.

Between 2007 and 2009, she was involved in the international project Overcoming Dictatorships, the Encounter of Artists, Poets and Writers, organized by Hannah-Arendt Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism in Dresda. She represented Romania at the International Festival Days of Poetry and Wine (Valtice, 2009). In 2012, the National Czech Television broadcast a literary portrait of Denisa, directed by Jan Gogola, within the documentary Evropa jedna báseň. In 2013, Denisa was invited to the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival and workshop of translations. In July 2015, she was writer-in residence for the “Absolute Modern” residency in Skopje, offered by Traduki and Goten publishing house. In September 2015 she participated in the first edition of the International Poetry Festival in Rahovec, Kosovo.

Her poems are included in several national and international anthologies, among which: Present Tensions. European Writers on Ovecoming Dictatorships (CEU Press, 2009), Days of Poetry and Wine, Valtice, (Větrné Mlýny, 2009), Generation 2000, by Marin Mincu (Pontica, 2004).

She gave readings in Bucharest, Prague, Budapest, Cracow, Vienna, Ireland, Malta, Skopje and Kosovo. Selections of her poems have been translated and published into more than ten languages, such as: English, Czech, Bulgarian, German, Finnish, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Macedonian, Arabic and Slovenian.

She translated from English the following works: David Abulafia, The Great Sea. A Human History of the Mediterranean, Humanitas, 2014 (together with Georgeta-Anca Ionescu and Marieva-Cătălina Ionescu); Immanuel Mifsud, In the Name of the Father (and of the Son), Polirom, 2014; and the poetry of Nikola Madzirov (Macedonia), Neil McCarthy (Ireland) and Immanuel Mifsud (Malta).

Denisa signed her first three books by her maiden name of Denisa Mirena Pișcu and most recently, starting with her latest book, she has been signing her work by her name of Denisa Duran.

Poems:
http://mascarareview.com/denisa-duran-in-self-translation/
http://thestockholmreview.org/the-stagnelius-section/denisa-duran/

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffiVmA3SXsI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QGSI8CGeNA






BIOGRAPHIES