Raúl Cisneros will be the first Quechua poet translated by the PTC. Quechua is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes.Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers.

The Poet

Raúl Cisneros comes from the peasant community of Pariamarca, in Ayacucho Peru; where he was a farmer, cattle herder, and baker. Then he studied to be a language and literature teacher at the San Cristobal de Huamanga National University. Founder and member of the Estirpe de Ayacucho Scenic Creation Collective, actor, oral narrator, musician. He is co-author with Sara Paredes Mansilla of the book: KAMETSA ASAIKE. THE PERFORMING ARTS FOR GOOD COMMUNITY LIVING IN THE ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON which won the Infoartes 2017 prize from the Ministry of Culture of Peru.

The Translator

Constantina Higbee comes from Peru and now lives in London. Her mother language is Quechua and she also speaks Spanish and English. She works with the Rimanakuy community to teach the Quechua language and Peruvian culture in London. She teaches Quechua in the classroom and online and runs a Peruvian dance group.

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 trabnslation 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 woeks 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.