KJCC Poetry Series #1

The first edition of the series, curated by Lila Zemborain, includes the reading by Ana Arzoumanian and translator Gabriel Amor of “Juana, the Mad Queen of Spain.”

This reading introduces the bilingual edition of Ana Arzoumanian’s Juana I to American audiences. Arzoumanian’s genre-defying tour de force is delivered via a trance-like, first person narration that collapses time and space. It is both a love poem to and poetic justice for Juana of Castile, aka “Juana la Loca,” the mad queen of Spain.

About Ana Arzoumanian

Ana Arzoumanian is a prolific and celebrated poet. She has also been a member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; a professor at the International Postgraduate Program in Creative Writing, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences; a Lacanian psychoanalyst; and a professor of Philosophy of Law at the Universidad del Salvador, Faculty of Legal Sciences of Buenos Aires. Arzoumanian remains an active literary and theater critic, and has traveled extensively to read her poetry. She collaborated on the documentary A Dialogue Without Borders about the Armenian genocide and the disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship. This is the first full-length English-language translation of her work in the U.S.

About Gabriel Amor

Born in Galicia, Spain, Gabriel Amor has lived in New York since the age of five. He has published translations of poetry and prose by numerous Latin American writers, and received a 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant for his work on Juana I. Amor has collaborated with other artists on multimedia performances and was a producer on the Emmy-nominated documentary The Woman Who Wasn’t There. He is Program Director of Postbaccalaureate Studies at Columbia University.

Performed in Spanish and English by Gabriel Amor and Ana Arzoumanian and preceded by a short animated film.