Chris Beckett

Bio: Chris Beckett was born in London but grew up mostly in Ethiopia, where his father worked at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa. He won the Poetry London competition in 2001, and Sketches from the Poem Road, a collaboration with his partner, the Japanese artist and sculptor Isao Miura, was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 2015. Carcanet has published two collections of poems about his boyhood in Ethiopia, Ethiopia Boy (2013) and Tenderfoot (2020).  ​Carcanet also published the first ever anthology of Ethiopian Amharic poetry in English, Songs We Learn from Trees, which he translated/edited together with his friend Alemu Tebeje. Songs was a finalist in the 2021 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, judged by Chris Abani. With Gale Burns & Selina Rodrigues, he host The Shuffle in Covent Garden, and he is also a trustee of the Poetry Society.​

Events: What Translation Sparks with Four Amazing Poet-Translators