About this Event
May a creative text employ more than one language? If yes, what relations might arise between different languages sharing the same space? How are languages changed by being brought into proximity with other languages? Do hierarchies of status always develop in such an instance? May a creative text say different things in different languages without directly translating between them? How does a multilingual context affect the practice and experience of translation? How does a multilingual context affect the way we use and perceive any single particular language?
Eugene Ostashevsky will discuss his work in the theory and poetic practice of translingualism, that is to say in juxtaposing phrases in different languages so that they affect one another. As a poet, he works with cross-linguistic influence and, especially, translingual puns. His poetry collection The Feeling Sonnets (Carcanet, 2022) contemplates the interaction between emotions and a language learned after childhood. A more recent title, Alphabet Soup: The Translingual Sayings of Emma and Eva as Recorded by Their Father (Tamizdat Project & Rab-Rab Press, 2026), records the wordplay of his daughters as they are growing up between languages.
Gwyneth Lewis calls The Feeling Sonnets “an exhilarating and witty enquiry into the designs that language has on us as intellectual, domestic and historical beings. This is poetry as punning philosophy, both entertaining and deeply serious.” Yoko Tawada calls Alphabet Soup a “marvelous book” that shows that “language itself is a poet: this is something that children know.”
SPEAKERS
Eugene Ostashevsky
is a Soviet-born American poet who lives in Berlin. His recent book of poetry, (Carcanet, 2022) examines the effects of speaking a non-native language on emotions, parenting, and identity. An earlier collection, (NYRB Poets, 2017), discusses communication difficulties between pirates and parrots. As translator of avantgarde and experimental writing, Ostashevsky edited and translated over a dozen titles, including (Northwestern UP, 2006). His work has been recognized by , , the City of Münster Prize for International Poetry, the US National Translation Award, and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Literature Fellowship.
Simona Nastac
is a London-based art curator and poet working between visual culture and language. Trained in Art History and Theory in Bucharest and later in Creative Curating at Goldsmiths, she has curated exhibitions and live poetry events in London, Seoul, Berlin, Prague, Brussels, Cluj, and Bucharest. Her debut book, The Depressing Colour of Honey (Tracus Arte, Bucharest, 2017), received the Alexandru Mușina Prize for poetry. Her poems have been published in journals such as Harana Poetry, Tears in the Fence, Apricity Press, and Black Bough Poetry.
Ramona Gonczol
is Associate Professor in Romanian language studies at UCL SSEES. She convenes the PROLang group and is an academic coordinator for the Language Short Courses programme at SSEES. She is the (co)author of Romanian and Essential Grammar (2nd edition, 2020) and Colloquial Romanian (4th edition,2014). Her research interests lie in the area of language acquisition, heritage speakers, cultural identities, language policy, multilingualism and ethnographic pedagogy. Her outreach work with heritage speakers in secondary schools and engaging with communities and heritage languages brought her a UCL Widening Participation award in June 2026. Ramona is a fellow of the HEA and the recipient for the Order for Cultural Merits in Promoting Romanian Culture and Language Abroad (2018).
Event venue & nearby stays
Masaryk room, 14-16 Taviton street, London, United Kingdom
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.