This is Not A Poem: Sabine Huynh on writing and translation

In this episode of This is not a Poem, Sabine Huynh and EK Bartlett explore the great women writers who shaped Sabine Huynh’s writing, notably Anne Sexton, and how translation shapes our practice as writers.  

A book shouldn’t be judged by its cover, but it was indeed the cover of Anne Sexton's collected poems and her sandaled feet, that captured Sabine’s attention in a little bookstore in Harvard Square in 1999. Now, 25 years later, Sabine has translated nearly all of this iconic American poet’s work. 

Sabine is a Saigon-born French poet, novelist and literary translator Sabine Huynh grew up in Lyon, France, holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and is the author of a dozen books, and of many translations. Notably, she has translated Anne Sexton, Ada Limón, Gwendolyn Brooks, Diane Seuss and Ilya Kaminsky. Winner of the 2023 Jean-Jacques-Rousseau award, and the 2023 Des racines et des mots Prize for Exile Literature, among others, she is working on her third novel.