Matthew Sweeney and Jan Wagner will read from their work at the Central Library, Grand Parade, Cork on February 11th at 6.30pm and at the Goethe-Institut, 37 Merrion Square, Dublin on February 12th at 6pm. The readings will be from Sweeney’s Pink Milk, published in 2008, and from Wagner’s Eighteen Pies, from 2007.
Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal in 1952. Since 1981 he has published over a dozen poetry collections, and his awards include the Cholmondeley Award in 1987 and the Arts Council Writers’ Award in 1999. His latest poetry collections are Sanctuary (2004) and Black Moon (2007), the latter shortlisted for the TS Eliot award and for the Irish Times / Poetry Now Award. He has also published poetry and novels for children and regularly publishes book reviews for the Observer, the Times Educational Supplement and Poetry London.
Jan Wagner was born in Hamburg in 1971. He studied at Hamburg University, Trinity College Dublin and Berlin’s Humboldt University. He now lives in Berlin as a poet, translator (Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Michael Hamburger, Matthew Sweeney) and literary critic (for the Frankfurter Rundschau, Der Tagesspiegel and others). Among his literary awards are the prestigious Anna Seghers Prize (2004), the Ernst Meier Prize (2005) and the first Arno Reinfrank Literature Award (2006).
Both readings are free.