Sound and Silence: The Poetics of Lesser-Known Languages Robin Munby and Morgan Leathem Ventura in conversation with Alanna Offield

In Partnership with Instituto Cervantes de Dublín / Skein Press

Join us for a special conversation on the art of translating from Indigenous and minoritised languages. In celebration of the United Nations Indigenous Languages Decade, this event will feature readings and discussions with the translators of two award-winning poetry collections: Robin Munby, translator of Asturian poet Raquel F. Menéndez’s The Posthumous Book of Shahrazad (Skein Press), and Morgan Leathem Ventura, translator of Ñuu Savi poet Kalu Tatyisavi’s Because of the Silence (Skein Press). They join poet Alanna Offield in conversation.

Robin Munby (Liverpool, 1991) is a literary translator based in Madrid. His translations from Spanish, Russian and Asturian have appeared in publications including The Glasgow Review of Books, World Literature Today, minor literature[s], Subtropics, Wasafiri, Poetry Ireland Review, Exchanges, World Poetry Review and Asymptote. In December 2023, he was the inaugural resident at the Residencia Lliteraria Xixón in Asturias. His translation of the novel Ánima fatua by the Cuban writer Anna Lidia Vega Serova (Amaurea Press, 2025) received an English PEN Translates Award in 2025.

Morgan Leathem Ventura is a writer, curator, and translator based between Ireland and Mexico. Writing and translations appear or are forthcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Latin American Literature Today, Banshee, Southword, Propel, and Best Canadian Essays 2021. As a curator and researcher, Morgan has written for Al Jazeera, American Anthropologist, the Archaeological Review from Cambridge, and Current Anthropology. The recipient of bursaries from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Fulbright Commission, and UK Research and Innovation fund, she holds degrees from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast and University of Chicago. Ventura’s the author of the micropamphlet, some minor, sometimes divine, existential crises (Ghost City Press, 2024) and translator of the forthcoming collection by Ñuu Savi poet, Kalu Tayisavi, Because of the Silence (Skein Press).

Alanna Offield is a poet from New Mexico now living in the north of Ireland. Her poetry has appeared in Aeon, Cyphers, Abridged, and other publications. She is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast and owns Seaside Books, atravelling bookshop. She is a founding member of Macha Press. Her debut pamphlet, They Wish They Had What We Have, Kid, was published with VIBE Press in 2024.

Presented in association with Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann 

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