I engage writers/poets/translators in long-form conversations about their craft for culture magazines. Here are some of those conversations.
Don Mee Choi on war, dreams, fathers, pencils, borders, languages, mirrors, drawings / Wasafiri Issue 121 / 2025
Jeremy Tiang on researching during translation, theatre, and working on different genres / Reading Asia column / 2024
Jami Nakamura Lin on researching and writing a speculative memoir, mental health narratives, and the uncanny yokai / Craft Literary Magazine / 2024
Yan Ge on writing in different languages, dialects, debuting at seventeen, and the pull and push of places / Reading Asia column / 2024
Dorothy Tse on academia and literature, writing through the Hong Kong protest, and the creation of names in fiction / Reading Asia column / 2024
Bora Chung on going to protests, translating Russian literature, and the question of audience / Reading Asia column / 2024
Norman Erikson Pasaribu on postcolonial Indonesia, queer liberation, writing and translation / Reading Asia column / 2024
Yoko Tawada on disappearing nations, animals, poetry / Reading Asia column / 2024
Seni Seneviratne, Shash Trevett, Vidyan Ravinthiran on the editing an anthology of Sri Lankan poetry / Words Without Borders / 2023
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi on first novels, the translator as a protagonist, Partition, and putting romance to the margins / Vogue India / 2023.
Cristina Rivera Garza and Sarah Booker on crossing borders, genres, and the myth of an ending / Wasafiri / 2023.
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber on winning the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction / Scroll.in / 2023.
Sueyeun Juliette Lee / on light, grief, difficult poetry, heritage, and landscape / The Willowherb Review / 2022.
Aditi Machado on mulberry, the silkiness of languages, and reorienting hierarchies / Honey Literary / 2021.
Jennifer Croft on childhood, photography, and multilingual projects / the Asymptote blog /2019.
Susanna Nied on translating and working with Inger Christensen / the Asymptote blog / 2018.
Ghayath Almadhoun on writing about war and losing a homeland/ the Asymptote blog / 2018.
Ursula Andkjær Olsen & Katrine Øgaard Jensen on motherhood, capitalism, and translating punctuation / the Asymptote blog, / 2017.
Ida Börjel on conceptual poetry, Gertrude Stein, resistance, language, baby pandas / the Asymptote blog / 2017.
Sometimes, I read and/or present my work at literary festivals, bookstores, conferences, and gatherings. I also moderate fun panels. Hope to see you there!
- Moderator: Literary Landscapes of Japan with Ginny Tapley Takemori, Asako Yuzuki, Kyoko Nakajima / Alliance Literary Festival / 2025
- Speaker: The Place of Digital Publishing / British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School / 2024
- Speaker: When Poets Turn Editors / Bangalore Poetry Festival / 2023
- Verse Warriors: Jeet Thayil and Sohini Basak / Bangalore Literature Festival / 2022
- Video poem ‘Future Libraries’ / Audiatur Festival for Ny Poesi Norway / 2022
- Poems on the Road presented by Walking Book Fair / Jaipur Literary Festival / 2019
- Summer Book Launch / London Review of Books Store / 2018
- The New Poet in the City: IIHS City Scripts / New Delhi Max Mueller Bhavan / 2017
- Habits & Practices of Writing Conference, Shiv Nadar University / Noida / 2016
- Place for Poetry Conference, Goldsmiths University / London / 2015
- The Expanded Lyric Conference, Queen’s University / Belfast / 2014
Sohini Basak 