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 Ivorian poet Tanella Boni’s collection, The future has an appointment with the dawn (African Poetry Book Series, University of Nebraska Press, 2018), as well as 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). Fredson is currently 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 decolonial studies, literary anthropology, African poetics, and contemporary and 20th century poetry and poetics. Fredson was a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow.

 

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