When he gives readings in Kurdistan, Abdulla Pashew draws audiences in the thousands. In addition to his eight volumes of poetry, Pashew is a prolific translator, fluent in Russian and English, responsible for bringing Whitman and Pushkin to Kurdish readership. He holds a master's degree in pedagogy and a doctorate in philology. Dictionary of Midnight is the first book-length selection of his poetry to appear in English.
Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse is a poet, translator, and co-director of Kashkul, a research, translation, and arts collaborative. She has lived and worked in Iraq since 2011, during which time she has dedicated herself to bringing Kurdish poets to English-speaking audiences, including Kajal Ahmad's Handful of Salt. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in The Iowa Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Sewanee Review, and World Literature Today, among others.
William T. Vollmann is the author of seven novels, three collections of stories, and a seven-volume critique of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down. He is also the author of Poor People, a worldwide examination of poverty through the eyes of the impoverished themselves; Riding Toward Everywhere, an examination of the train-hopping hobo lifestyle; and Imperial, a panoramic look at one of the poorest areas in America. He has won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize and a Whiting Writers' Award. His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin and Granta. Vollmann lives in Sacramento, California.
