Todd Fredson is a poet, a critic, and a translator of Afro-francophone and West African literature. He is the author of two poetry collections, Century Worm (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2018) and The Crucifix-Blocks (Tebot Bach, 2012), which won the Patricia Bibby First Book Award. He has made French to English translations of two books by Ivorian poet Josué Guébo, Think of Lampedusa (African Poetry Book Series, University of Nebraska Press, 2017) and My country, tonight (Action Books, 2016), as well as Ivorian poet Tanella Boni’s collection, The future has an appointment with the dawn (African Poetry Book Series, University of Nebraska Press, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award and the 2019 National Translation Award. Fredson is completing a translation of Boni's most recent poetry collection, There where it's so clear in me, which won the 2018 Prix Théophile Gautier from the French Academy. He is also working with Azo Vauguy to translate from French and Bété to English Vauguy’s book-length poem, Zakwato, which is an adaptation of a myth from the Bété ethnic group in the Ivory Coast. Fredson is, additionally, collaborating with West African slam poets and storytellers. His poetry, translations, nonfiction, book reviews, and essays appear in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Jacket2, Prairie Schooner, Warscapes, and other journals and anthologies. Fredson served in the Peace Corps from 2000 to 2002, living in a village in the Ivory Coast during the unrest that led to that country's recent civil wars. He returned to the country as a 2015-16 Fulbright Fellow. He holds an MFA from Arizona State University and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. Fredson specializes in contemporary and 20th century poetry and poetics, transnational, decolonial, and postcolonial studies, African literature and poetics, and literary translation. Fredson was a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow.
