Alexis Levitin
Translator/Writer
Photo: Nick Levitin
ABOUT
Alexis Levitin has published 48 books in translation, mostly poetry from Portugal, Brazil, and Ecuador. In addition to twelve books by Portugal's Eugénio de Andrade and five books by Brazil's Salgado Maranhão, his work includes Clarice Lispector’s Soulstorm (from New Directions) and Rosa Alice Branco's Cattle of the Lord (from Milkweed Editions). He is a recipient of two NEA translation fellowships and has served as a Fulbright Lecturer at the Universities of Oporto and Coimbra, Portugal, The Catholic University in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Brazil. In addition, he has held translation residencies at the Banff Center, Canada, The European Translators Collegium in Straelen, Germany (twice), and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy.
Recent books include Outrage by Ecuador’s Carmen Váscones (White Dwarf Editions, 2018), Palávora by Salgado Maranhão (Diálogos Books, 2019), Saga by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (Arte e Ciência, Porto, Portugal, 2019), Legends of Salt City by Vasco Branco (Câmara Municipal de Aveiro, 2020), Mapping the Tribe by Salgado Maranhão (Spuyten Duyvil, 2021), Consecration of the Wolves by Salgado Maranhão (Bitter Oleander Press, 2021), Gazing Through Water by Astrid Cabral (Aliform Publishers, 2021) and Furrows of Thirst by Eugénio de Andrade, his last collection of poetry (from Dialogos Books, 2022).
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On Oct. 4, 2020, his translations of poems by Astrid Cabral and Salgado Maranhão appeared in a special feature on the Amazon in the New York Times.
During the fear-tinged isolation engendered by the pandemic, he began to write short stories. So far, thirty-two have been accepted by literary magazines such as Bitter Oleander, Latin American Literary Review, and Rosebud, and a collection of his chess-related stories, The Last Ruy Lopez: Tales from the Royal Game, will be coming out in the fall from Russell Enterprises.
PUBLICATIONS
Some of my translations.
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Works Seeking Publishers
1) Herberto Helder (Portugal) – The Endless Poem
2) Gastão Cruz (Portugal) – Selected Poems
3) Ruy Belo (Portugal) – Selected Poems
4) Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (Portugal) - Selected Poems
5) Fiama Hasse Pais Brandao (Portugal) - Landscape Being Born (Poetry)
6) Salgado Maranhão (Brazil) – Beneath the Gaze of Will Barnet
7) Astrid Cabral (Brazil) - Spotlight on the Word (Poetry)
8) Leonor Scliar-Cabral (Brazil - The Book of Joseph (Poetry)
9) Santiago Vizcaino (Ecuador) – In the Twilight
Interviews
For additional interviews with Prof. Levitin, please see: