FORT WAYNE, Ind.—The University of Saint Francis welcomes author/poet Aviya Kushner as the featured speaker in the Sullivan Reading Series at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 11 in the Brookside Ballroom, 2701 Spring Street. The event is free.
The past year has been a whirlwind for Kushner. Orison Books published her debut poetry collection, “WOLF LAMB BOMB,” in June 2021, and it won the 2021 Chicago Review of Books Award for Best Poetry in December. “WOLF LAMB BOMB” revives and reimagines the Book of Isaiah in an intimate conversation between woman and prophet. She reflects on a Biblical understanding of humanity and justice.
The National Endowment for the Arts selected Kushner, a member of the Third Coast Translators Collective, and 23 other translators to translate works from 16 languages and 18 countries into English. With this fellowship, Kushner will support the translation from the Hebrew of selected poetry written by Tel Aviv-born poet Yudit Shahar.
“Working on these translations in cafes on two continents, reading and rereading the Hebrew and trying to make poems in English out of poems in Hebrew, I realized that I have two creative lives—and that my happiest moments live in the space between languages,” she told the National Endowment for the Arts.
Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking home in New York. She is an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago and a founding faculty member at the Randolph College MFA program. Her work receives support from the Howard Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.
For more information, contact Angie Springer at aspringer@sf.edu or 260-399-7700, ext. 8100.
Founded in 1890 in the Catholic Franciscan tradition, the University of Saint Francis offers more than 60 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs through the College of Health Sciences; College of Arts, Sciences and Business; and College of Adult and Distance Education. In addition to its traditional programs, USF designs focused curricula for working adults in Fort Wayne, Crown Point and online. USF Downtown houses the university’s business and music technology programs while offering enhanced internship and networking opportunities for students. The University of Saint Francis, recognized as an NAIA Five-Star Champion of Character institution, has 18 athletic programs boasting two individual and four team NAIA national championships. Approximately 2,200 students from a broad geographic region attend USF.