Sean O'Brien - Making The Crossing: the Poet as Translator

Photo: © Caroline Forbes

The 2012 Sebald Lecture was given by Sean O'Brien at Kings Place London on 6 February 2012.

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Sean O’Brien is a poet, critic, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He grew up in Hull and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and 2007 recipient of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award. His selected poems, Cousin Coat: Selected Poems 1976-2001 was published in 2002 and his new verse version of Dante’s Inferno in 2006. His first six individual poetry collections have all won awards, most recently The Drowned Book, which won both the 2007 Forward and T S Eliot Prizes, the first time a book has won both awards. A book of short stories, The Silence Room, was published in 2008; Afterlife, his first novel, and Night Train, a collaborative work of poetry and drawings with Northumberland artist Birtley Aris, were published in 2009. His new poetry collection, November, was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the 2011 T S Eliot Prize and for the Forward Prize.

The 2012 Sebald Lecture, given by Sean O'Brien on 6 February 2012 at Kings Place, London, is now available to listen to on this website. Simply use the audio player below to hear the lecture (duration approximately 63 minutes).