on the translators

Landeg White

was born in South Wales in 1940, and named for his maternal grandfather. A preacher’s son, he spent his childhood in Cheshire, Glasgow and Hertfordshire before graduating from Liverpool University.

The first third of his professional life was played out in the University of the West Indies, Trinidad, where he was chief arranger for a steel band; in the University of Malawi, from where he was deported in 1972; in the University of Sierra Leone, where he wrote the detective novel Inspector Tucker & the Leopard men, and in the University of Zambia, where he was teaching when his first book V.S. Naipaul: a Critical Introduction, appeared.

The second third was played out at the University of York where he joined the Centre for Southern African Studies in 1980, becoming Director in 1984. Here, partly in collaboration with Leroy Vail, he wrote the books based on his African experiences – two Mozambican histories, the history of a village in Malawi, a study of southern Africa praise poetry, an anthology of African oral poetry (co-authored with Jack Mapanje) and three collections of his own poetry.

Since 1994, he has lived in Portugal where he teaches at the Universidade Aberta (Open University). Here, he has published a prize-winning translation of Camões The Lusiads, and four further collections of poetry, including Where the Angolans are Playing Football: Selected and New Poems and Arab Work.

The Collected Lyrics of Luis de Camoes was published by Princeton University Press in 2008. Singing Bass, a further collection of poems, will appear in 2009, and Livingstone’s Funeral, a novel, in 2010.

"So, my answer's yes" - Landeg White (answering our request to work in this project)


Cevat Çapan

was born in Darıca near Istanbul in 1933. He studied at Robert College from 1945 to 1953, read English at Peterhouse, Cambridge from 1953 to 1956, taught English Literature and Drama in the English Department of Istanbul University from 1960 to 1980, and worked as Professor of Drama in Mimar Sinan University from 1980 to 1996. He is currently Professor of English and Drama at the Yeditepe University in Istanbul.

His first book of poems Dön Güvercin Dön (Return Dove, Return) was awarded the Behçet Necatigil Prize in 1986. His later poetry were collected in three other valumes Doğal Tarih (1989), Sevda Yaratan (1994), and Ne Güzel Yolculuktu Aklımdan Çıkmaz (2001). His collected poems were published in 2007 by Yapı Kredi Publications under the title Bana Düşlerini Anlat.

In 1996, a selection from his poems was translated into French and published in France in the series Les cahiers de Royaumont by Creaphis under the title L’hiver est fini.

In 2001 another selection of his poems were translated by him and by Michael Hulse and published in England by Arc Publications under the title Where Are You, Susie Petchek?
He has translated widely from English, American and Greek poets, and edited anthologies of verse translation. Also translated to turkish the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He has also published critical studies of Irish and English playwrights including Synge, O’Casey, Whiting and Wesker as well as translations of their plays.

"I hope this collaboration will be very fruitful for those interested in poetry." - Cevat Çapan (when asked to be part of this project)