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In This Newsletter:
Carolyn Burke - Thursday, May 5
Mary Winegarden - Tuesday, May 17
More Upcoming Events
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CAROLYN BURKE will discuss
No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf
Thursday, May 5 at 7 PM
Join us for a fascinating evening with Carolyn Burke, who has written an enthralling and empathetic biography about the beloved French chanteuse, Edith Piaf. Burke, who has chronicled the lives of photographer Lee Miller and poet Mina Loy, captures Piaf's charismatic appeal, along with the time and place that gave rise to her remarkable international career.
As a child, Piaf grew up in a Normandy brothel run by her grandmother, then led a vagabond life, touring as a singer with her father's acrobatic performances. Burke had access to previously untapped Piaf documents, and highlights aspects of the artist that are rarely mentioned, such as Piaf's aiding Jews during World War II. The author demonstrates how, with her courage, her incomparable art, and her universal appeal, "the little sparrow" endures as a symbol of France and a source of inspiration to entertainers worldwide.
"Burke's terrific biography of Edith Piaf shucks the simplistic arc of self-destructive urchin to a more complex portrait that includes the singer's heroics in the French Resistance and roles as mentor, lyricist, and enduring icon." — Kimberly Cutter, Marie Claire
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MARY WINEGARDEN will read from
The Translator's Sister
Tuesday, May 17 at 7 PM
Join us for a very special evening of poetry and prose, featuring Mary Winegarden and two of her colleagues from San Francisco State University.
Winegarden will read from The Translator's Sister, her response to the unexpected death of her sister, Katharine Washburn - a critic, editor and translator of poetry, who was working on her first novel, The Translator's Apology, when she died in March 2000. Using phrases from Washburn's work as her foil, Winegarden creates a moving meditation on the bonds of sisterhood. Crossing boundaries between prose and poetry, fiction and memoir, her poems play off the root meaning of translation: "to carry across." The Translator's Sister resonates with the intimacy and humor of remembered details, with loss translated into art.
SFSU writers Jennifer Arin and Julyan Peard will also read from their recent work. Arin, a lecturer in the English Department and a published poet, essayist and award-winning travel writer, is currently working on a book-length series of essays about Spanish culture and flamenco dance. Peard is a professor of Latin American history and author of Race, Place and Medicine: The Idea of the Tropics in 19th c. Brazil. She is working on a collection of short stories, two of which appeared in The Missouri Review, all linked to Argentina, her birthplace.
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