The Grace Of My Home

About the Author

A prominent writer and cultural figure in Brazil, where he lived for the first part of his life, and in Italy, where he lived until his death, Julio Monteiro Martins’ final poetry collection, La Grazia di Casa Mia (The Grace of My Home), was published in Italian in 2013 (Rediviva Edizioni, Milan).

Widely published in both countries, Julio experienced the pain of exile as well as the difficult immersion into a new language and new culture. As a writer, a mentor to young writers, a teacher, and a publisher, he had a wide following.

In Brazil, Julio worked as a human rights lawyer and was among the founders of the Brazilian Green Party and the environmental movement Os Verdes. He published nine books in Portuguese, including short stories, essays, and novels; was the founder and director of the Anima press, which published Brazilian authors in the 1980s; and taught creative writing in Rio de Janeiro.

Read some of his translated works.

About the Translator

Donald Stang is a long-time student of Italian. His translations of Italian poetry, with Helen Wickes and/or Pina Piccolo, have appeared or are forthcoming in Carrying the Branch: Poets in the following:

Search of Peace’ (Glass Lyre Press, 2017); ‘Catamaran’; ‘Silk Road’; ‘Pirene’s Fountain’; ‘Ghost Town’; ‘Apple Valley Review’; ‘America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience’ (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2018); and ‘thedreamingmachine.com’. Others have appeared in Newfound and Pirene’s Fountain. He was educated in a public high school and attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School; he practiced law for some years. He subsequently studied landscape horticulture and practiced as a horticulturist and landscape designer.

Read some of his translation works.

Four books of Helen Wickes‘ poetry have been published: ‘In Search of Landscape’ (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2007); ‘Dowser’s Apprentice’ and ‘Moon over Zabriskie’ (both Glass Lyre Press, 2014); and ‘World as You Left It’ (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016).

Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in The Dreaming Machine (thedreamingmachine.com) and Sagarana (sagarana.net), among many other publications. She is a long-time member of Sixteen Rivers Press, a small, non-profit poetry press.

Read some of her translation works.