Joan Trodden Keefe (1931 – February 7, 2013) was an Irish poet, translator, and scholar.

Education and career

Keefe attended University College Dublin. In the early 1970s, she began publishing translations of

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

poetry, along with her own poetry, in both Irish publications such as ''Soundings'' and ''Kilkenny Magazine'' and overseas ones such as ''

New Orleans Review ''New Orleans Review'', founded in 1968, is a journal of contemporary literature and culture that publishes "poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography, film and book reviews" by established and emerging writers and artists. ''New Orleans Revie ...

''. Some of these poems, including her translation of

Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin (174829 June 1784), anglicized as Owen Roe O'Sullivan ("Red Owen"), was an Irish poet. He is known as one of the last great Gaelic poets. A recent anthology of Irish-language poetry speaks of his "extremely musical" po ...

's "His Request," were included by John Montague in the ''

Faber Book of Irish Verse The ''Faber Book of Irish Verse'' was a poetry anthology edited by John Montague and first published in 1974 by Faber and Faber. Recognised as an important collection, it has been described as 'the only general anthology of Irish verse in the ...

''. Others appeared in ''The Other Voice: Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry in Translation'', of which she was also a co-editor. She edited and translated ''Irish Poems from Cromwell to the Famine'' in 1976. After moving to the United States, Keefe earned her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1984, with a dissertation consisting of a translation of and commentary on

Máirtín Ó Cadhain Máirtín Ó Cadhain (; 1906 – 18 October 1970) was one of the most prominent Irish language writers of the twentieth century. Perhaps best known for his 1949 novel ''Cré na Cille'', Ó Cadhain played a key role in reintroducing literary mod ...

's ''

Cré na Cille () is an Irish language novel by Máirtín Ó Cadhain. It was first published in 1949. It is considered one of the greatest novels written in the Irish language. Title ''Cré na Cille'' literally means "Earth of the Church"; it has also been ...

''. This translation was the only version of the novel available to non-Irish speakers until 2015. Keefe continued to teach at Berkeley as a lecturer of Celtic Studies and Scandinavian Studies following her graduation, and served as an

consultant in linguistics courses. With Carol Cosman and Kathleen Weaver, she edited the ''Penguin Book of Women Poets.'' She also published a number of essays defending and endorsing the "new and vitalising interest" in the writing and publishing of new fiction and poetry in the Irish language. A frequent contributor to '' World Literature Today'', she published 24 articles and reviews in the journal.

Personal life

Trodden Keefe was married to Denis Keefe for 36 years until his death in 1990; Denis was an accomplished physicist at Berkeley and an activist in support of Soviet dissidents. They had three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keefe, Joan 1913 births 2013 deaths Irish women poets 20th-century Irish translators University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Irish–English translators