Don’t Hide the Madness

Nhã Thuyên was born in 1986, in Việt Nam and works as a writer and editor in Hà Nội. Her most recent books are bất\ \tuẫn: những hiện diện [tự-] vắng trong thơ Việt and its English edition: un\ \martyred: [self-]vanishing presences in Vietnamese poetry (Roofbook, 2019) and Moon Fevers (Tilted Axis Press, 2019). Her main practices are writing between languages, experimenting with translations, and poetic exchanges. With Kaitlin Rees, she founded AJAR in 2014, a micro bilingual literary journal-press, a precariously online, printed space for poetic exchange. She otherwise talks to walls and soliloquies nonsense when having no other emergencies of life to deal with. Her next book of poetry vị nước (taste of waters) is waiting to see the moon.

Kaitlin Rees is a translator, editor, and teacher based in New York City, with reachings toward Hanoi. She translates from the Vietnamese of Nhã Thuyên, with whom she cofounded AJAR, a small bilingual journal-presse that organizes an occasional poetry festival. Her full-length translations include Moon Fevers (Tilted Axis, 2019), words breathe, creatures of elsewhere (Vagabond Press, 2016), and the forthcoming book of poetry taste of water.