Poet and Translator, Department of English, State University of New York Albany
Berlin Prize Fellow - Class of Fall 2003
Pierre Joris has moved between the US, Great Britain, North Africa, France, and Luxembourg for 50 years, publishing over 40 books of poetry, essays and translations. He is the co-editor of Diwan Iffrikya: An Anthology of North African Writings from Prehistory to Today, with Habib Tengou (University of California Press); in 2011 Chax Press published the complete Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj (poems) and Black Widow Press published Exile is My Trade: A Habib Tengour Reader edited, introduced, and translated by Joris.
Additional publications include a translation of The Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials by Paul Celan. (Stanford, 2011), Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade, an Ahadada ebook. 2010. Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 came out in 2009 (SALT Publishers.) In 2007 and 2008 he published Aljibar and Aljibar II (poems, bilingual, French translation by Eric Sarner, Editions PHI, Luxembourg) and the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; Mitch Elrod, guitar; Ta’wil Productions) and Meditations on the Stations of Mansour Al-Hallaj 1-21 (Anchorite Press, Albany). Other translations include Paul Celan: Selections (University of California Press), and three volumes of Paul Celan translations, Breathturn, Threadsuns, and Lightduress (the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award). With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry.
Joris lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, the performance artist Nicole Peyrafitte, and teaches poetry and poetics at the State University of New York, Albany.