Purifications or the Sign of Retaliation
AUTHOR
Myriam Fraga
TRANSLATOR
Chloe Hill
Winner of the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation
Reviews
"These are dense, florid, strange, and beautiful poems that rewrite the Greek pantheon into a feminist Brazilian landscape. Beginning with an invocation, they ask us to bear witness and reflect familiar myths upon the body of the poet. The collection makes its way from these abstract, timeless myths to vibrant present tense. Chloe Hill has created a beautiful voice in English, paying special attention to the clean sound, powerful movement, and aching pulse of each line, making this translation a pleasure to read and re-read."
– Becker Prize Judges Aron Aji and Diana Thow
Chloe Hill is a PhD student in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University. In 2014, with the support of a Fulbright fellowship, she traveled to Brazil to work alongside Myriam Fraga translating a selection of poems.
Myriam Fraga (1937-2016) was a contemporary Brazilian poet from Salvador da Bahia. She is also executive director of the Fundação Casa de Jorge Amado and a member of the Bahian Academy of Letters. Her published work includes ten volumes of poetry, as well as biographies and children's literature.