Karen Press (born 1956) is a South African poet and translator.
She was born in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
, and lives in
Sea Point
Sea Point (Afrikaans: ''Seepunt'') is one of Cape Town's most affluent and densely populated suburbs, situated between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean, a few kilometres to the west of Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD). Moving from ...
. Press is a full-time writer and editor, having published ten collections of poetry,
a film script, short stories, as well as educational material and textbooks in the fields of science, mathematics, English and economics.
She also translated poetry from
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, primarily work by
Antjie Krog.
In 1987 she co-founded the publishing collective Buchu Books.
[
Antjie Krog described her poems in ''The Museum of Working Life'' as "a haunting museum constructed in Press's delicate tone and vivid poetic intelligence."]
Poetry
* ''Emergency Declarations'' (found poems, co-produced with Ingrid de Kok, 1985)
* ''This Winter Coming'' (Cinnamon Crocodile, 1986)
* ''Bird Heart Stoning the Sea'' (Buchu Books, 1990)
Awards
Press received the Literary Translators Award in the 2015 South African Literary Awards for translation of ''Mede-wete'' and ''Synapse'' by Antjie Krog.
References
External links
1956 births
Living people
South African women poets
Writers from Cape Town
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