Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Karen Leeder

After listening to this exuberant interview, you’ll retire the phrase “lost in translation” from your vocabulary. Instead, writer and scholar Karen Leeder believes poetry can expand when translated, reaching new audiences and gaining new layers of meaning. Karen joins Pádraig Ó Tuama in an interview recorded in 2025 after she and Durs Grünbein were co-awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize for her translation of Psyche Running, which Durs wrote. In addition to reading from her work, she explains what it’s like to translate a poet who is very much alive and why she thinks translation can help “explode” insularity and xenophobia.

We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Karen Leeder is a writer, scholar, and translator of contemporary German literature. She has received many accolades for her translations, including being co-awarded (with Durs Grünbein) the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize for her translation of Psyche Running by Durs Grünbein. She is the Schwarz-Taylor Chair of the German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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