The Poetry Translation Centre has been translating Georgian poetry for over ten years. Georgian is the official language of Georgia and the native or primary language of 87.6% of its population. Its speakers today amount to approximately four million. Georgian is written in its own unique alphabet. This is the first time the PTC has translated Bela Chekurishvili.

The Poet

Bela Chekurishvili is a Georgian poet and journalist. She was born on December 25, 1974 in Vachnadziani, Gurjaani. After finishing school, she studied Georgian language and literature at Tbilisi State University. Chekurishvili worked as a journalist for various magazines and newspapers in Georgia from 1998 to 2013. She then began further PhD study on comparative literature, hosted by Tbilisi State University and the University of Bonn. Her poetry depicts everyday life: from lumberjacks to prostitutes, housewives to refugees. Her poetry is published in several volumes and she has also published a volume of short stories.

The Translator

Natalia Bukia-Peters is a freelance translator, interpreter and teacher of Georgian and Russian. She studied at Tbilisi State, Ilia Chavchavadze University and holds a Masters degree from Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has been a translator for the Poetry Translation Centre and a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists in London for several years. Her most recent books are Diana Anphimiadi’s Beginning to Speak in collaboration with the poet Jean Sprackland and Salome Benidze’s I Wanted To Ask You in collaboration with the poet Helen Mort (Poetry Translations Centre 2018).

The Facilitator

The workshops will be led by award-winning poet and translator Leo Boix, an Argentine-British poet, translator and journalist based in the UK. He is the author of an English collection, Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (Chatto & Windus, 2021) and two Spanish collections, Un lugarpropio (2015) and Mar de noche (2017). He co-directs Invisible Presence, a scheme to nurture young Latinx poets in the UK. Boix received the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize Award in 2018 and the Keats-Shelly Prize in 2019.

Our workshops are open to all - there is no need to know the original language. Simply join in.

The Poetry Translation Centre makes the translation process open to all. You don't need to have any previous language skills or translation experience. The guest translator will provide a simple guide translation for the group to work from, going line by line until we have a new vertion that works as a living poem in English.

It is a wonderful opportunity to look closely at a poem from another culture and participants discover new aspects of language, develop their translating skills and have an opportunity to share their love of poetry with people all around the world.

Season Passes

Save money with a season pass. At £56.00 for full price or £35.00 concession, a Season Pass of our Autumn workshops season you save 12.5% on the price of four individual tickets. Plus for every workshop you attend, you earn loyalty points towards free PTC publications.

Get your Season Pass here.