Judith Kiros - O
Judith Kiros
O
Translated from Swedish by
KIRA JOSEFSSON
$20.00
Bilingual Edition
136 pages
September 26, 2024
ISBN 978-1-954218-23-9
Distributed by Asterism (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
JUDITH KIROS (b. 1989) is a Swedish poet, translator, and critic. Her 2019 debut O was shortlisted for Swedish Radio’s Poetry Prize, Katapultpriset, and Borås Tidning’s Prize for Debut Authors. She is the 2023 winner of the Mare Kandre Prize and Svenska Dagbladets Literature Prize. Kiros is a PhD candidate in English literature at Karlstad University and lives in Stockholm.
KIRA JOSEFSSON is a writer, editor, and translator working between Swedish and English. Her translations have been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the Bernard Shaw Prize. She lives in Queens, New York, and writes on US events and politics in the Swedish press.
Judith Kiros
O
Translated from Swedish by
KIRA JOSEFSSON
Swedish poet Judith Kiros’s widely-acclaimed debut stretches boundaries of genre, race, and gender in an alternative production of Shakespeare’s Othello that sidesteps black death for a multitude of futures.
Taking a cue from Derek Walcott’s Omeros, Kiros employs metric verve and critical bite to add to Shakespeare a wide range of historical and contemporary works, producing a meditation on blackness that sets up a new reflective surface at every turn. O marks the first translation into English of one of Sweden’s most thrilling young poets.
"O is unlike anything you have ever read. A revisioning of a classic text and a revolt against its many implications. Judith Kiros's astonishing talents manifest in language that holds the balance between beautiful and heartbreaking. This book, written by a brilliant and unflinching imagination, is quite simply a joy to read.” —Maaza Mengiste
“Riffing off Shakespeare’s Othello and ranging across all manner of the poetic and critical, Judith Kiros’s O, a book about race, gender, Blackness, Sweden, colonialism and decolonization, and so much more, achieves what only the best and most original poetry can, which is to remake our understanding and sense of the genre. Kira Josefsson’s translation deserves the highest praise as well.” —John Keene
“With a beguiling combination of technical assurance and a reckless—in the best sense—inclination to honor each poem’s agency, we find in Judith Kiros a poet equal to the chimerical nature of our times. This acerbic, endlessly surprising book is refreshing and moreish as a favored tipple over ice on a warm day.” —Kayo Chingonyi
“In the opening soliloquy of O, Judith Kiros writes, ‘All should be played by the same actor to the best of their ability.’ That action arises, singly, via succeeding texts in Kiros’s dexterous debut: O is prismatic and refracts Shakespeare’s Othello into five smartly staged movements that emerge contours of translation, canals, Blackness, ‘unfamiliar women,’ and light. Judith Kiros whets language with serious play, offering a rumination that is liquid-measured and beautifully possessed. ‘It splashes about / It gets everywhere, and spectators flee.’” —Ica Sadagat
“Kiros's work enacts an exuberance and immediacy that renders language both tactile and tender. These poems billow and it is in this brimming excess that we alternately encounter both starkly austere images and the deeply romantic. Kiros's range and deft ability to travel across registers sustains O. These are poems needed for these times.” —Asiya Wadud
“O is the conversation with form that I've been waiting for. Where attention extends beyond the page and stage to demarcate the elasticity and permeability of empire. The terms at stake are clear. Clearly capitalism. Clearly freedom. Many Types. For Example: after industrialization. For example: before winter. For example: before fleeing one's home.” —Saretta Morgan
“An incredibly promising poet has seen the light of day.” —Sinziana Ravini, Göteborgs-Posten
“With simple means and a suggestive rhythm, Kiros creates a great diffusion of meaning; this is a book that invites re-reading and only deepens with time.” —Petter Lindgren, Aftonbladet
“An enjoyable read; Kiros’s formal richness is fun, fresh, and angry.” —Lars Hermansson, Kulturnytt, Swedish Radio
“A boundary-pushing poetry collection that’s rich with references, as intellectual as it is playful.” —Sebastian Lönnlöv, Svenska Dagbladet
“This is poetry that’s instructive, educational in the best sense. […] O is a debut collection that’s elaborate and full of ideas, requiring careful attention. Any reader who takes her time will be richly rewarded—and surprised!” —Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, Dagens Nyheter
BIOS
JUDITH KIROS (b. 1989) is a Swedish poet, translator, and critic. Her 2019 debut O was shortlisted for Swedish Radio’s Poetry Prize, Katapultpriset, and Borås Tidning’s Prize for Debut Authors. She is the 2023 winner of the Mare Kandre Prize and Svenska Dagbladets Literature Prize. Kiros is a PhD candidate in English literature at Karlstad University and lives in Stockholm.
KIRA JOSEFSSON is a writer, editor, and translator working between Swedish and English. Her translations have been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the Bernard Shaw Prize. She lives in Queens, New York, and writes on US events and politics in the Swedish press.
PRESS
Bilingual Edition
136 pages
September 26, 2024
ISBN 9978-1-954218-23-9
Distributed by Asterism (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
