about
Poet, essayist, fiction writer, playwright, art critic, translator and contributing editor to NY ARTS magazine from Paris, Serbian-born Nina Zivancevic published 15 books of poetry. She has also written three books of short stories, two novels and a book of essay on Milosh Crnjanski (her doctoral thesis) published in Paris, New York and Belgrade. The recipient of three literary awards, a former assistant and secretary to Allen Ginsberg, she has also edited and participated in numerous anthologies of contemporary world poetry.
As editor and correspondent she has contributed to New York Arts Magazine, Modern Painters, American Book Review, East Village Eye, Republique de lettres. She has lectured at Naropa University, New York University, the Harriman Institute and St.John’s University in the U.S., she has taught English language and literature at La Sorbonne ( Paris I and V) and the History of Avant-garde Theatre at Paris 8 University in France and at numerous universities and colleges in Europe.
She has actively worked for theatre and radio: 4 of her plays were performed and emitted in the U.S. and Great Britain.
In New York she had worked with the “Living Theatre” and the members of the “Wooster Group”.
She lives and works in Paris.
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Poète, essayiste, écrivainne de fiction, dramaturge, critique d'art, traductrice et rédactrice en chef du magazine NY ARTS de Paris, Nina Zivancevic, d'origine serbe, a publié 15 recueils de poésie. Elle a également écrit trois livres de nouvelles, deux romans et un recueil d'essais sur Milosh Crnjanski (sa thèse de doctorat) publiés à Paris, New York et Belgrade. Lauréate de trois prix littéraires, ancienne assistante et secrétaire d'Allen Ginsberg, elle a également édité et participé à de nombreuses anthologies de poésie mondiale contemporaine.
En tant que rédactrice et correspondante, elle a contribué à : New York Arts Magazine, Modern Painters, American Book Review, East Village Eye, République de lettres. Elle a enseigné à l'Université Naropa, à l'Université de New York, à l'Institut Harriman et à l'Université St.John's aux États-Unis, elle a enseigné la langue et la littérature anglaises à La Sorbonne (Paris I et V) et l'histoire du théâtre d'avant-garde à Paris 8 Université en France et dans de nombreuses universités et grandes écoles en Europe.
Elle a travaillé activement pour le théâtre et la radio : 4 de ses pièces ont été jouées et diffusées aux États-Unis et en Grande-Bretagne.
A New York, elle avait travaillé avec le "Living Theatre" et les membres du "Wooster Group".
Elle vit et travaille à Paris.
lyrics
Nina Živančević - Her Voice Calling like Death
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Like the old age it calls in whispers, essential like Quevedo’s or Sevedo’s or Camoes’s it sounds like my own voice
So that I don’t drop a tear at leaving my native soil
She lets it drop instead of me and perhaps she doesn’t
Cause she is my predictable or perhaps unpredictible „I“ that
Part of me which cries around midnight without a penny
Without hope the part which lives the living death
and which like the old age calls in whispers, essential like Quevedo’s or Sevedo’s or Camoes’s
so truly, I tell my people
why do you need another Alvaro when Ricardo Reis tortures
everyone around here on daily basis?
Why do you need an extra Cairos when Fernando has already been
causing all that turmoil in our city?
Sometimes it seems to me when I visit her and she’s asleep, it feels
Like I myself should stay awake
Sometimes when I fall asleep she’s there to listen to
Her own breathing in my own lungs
She’s that better part of me as I am her sad and bad younger sister
However, I will rise up from her dark and heavy armor taken from Osiris
We know though that it is she who cleans the words
Which I had collected and then put together
And in a shool book future generations will have a mighty task
To distinguish our poems as we always manage to trick the readers
As when one reads my books in translation, the translation bears
Her voice
As she softens and then whispers in my own
In those books she translated into hers...
They call me Mina
And her, they call Nina
And sometimes this one person doubles
While becoming a gentle persona on her own
----
Njen glas kao smrt
Kao starost kao sapat šušti suštinom kao kod Kveveda ili Ševeda ili Kamoeša
zvuči kao moj
Tako kad odlazim iz rodnog kraja
Ne pustim suzu koju ona umesto mene pusti a možda i ne jer
Ona je upravo predvidljivo a i
Nepredvidljivo ono moje ja koje pred ponoć cvili bez obola i bez nade životno a mrtvo
I kao sapat šušti suštinom kao kod Kveveda ili Ševeda ili Kamoeša
I odista- lepo ljudima kažem
Šta ce ti još Alvaro kad te ovde vec
Danima Rikardo Reiš muči??
Šta ce ti i Kairos kad Fernando
Vec u gradu pravi zbrku??
Ponekad mi se učini , kada dodjem a ona usni, da ne treba i ja da zaspim
Ponekad kada spavam, ona
Osluškuje disanje svoje u meni
Ona je moje bolje ja, a ja njena nevesela neposlusna sestra
Izronicu uskoro iz njenog tamnog
Oklopa Ozirisa . A znamo pak,da
Ona cisti reci koje ja talozim pa spajam
i u dječjoj čitanci teško ce nas staviti na različita mesta jer uvek ih
Prevarimo, bas uvek
čak i kada čitaju moje prevedene knjige, prevedena beletristika sadrži njen
Glas
Dok pa sada ona
umekšava i šuška mojim , u onim knjigama koje ona prevodi
Mene zovu Mina,
A nju Nina-
A Nekad se udvostruči
Ta osoba, jako fina...
credits
from
No Lockdown Sonopoetics [in progress sessions],
released June 15, 2020
This piece was also part of the 'No Lockdown Sonopoetic Scape' project, a sound installation by Paradise Now premiered at Festival Zone Libre, Bastia (Corsica) in February 2022.
license
