Transgressive Circulation

Poetry, Frost is often quoted as having said, is what is lost in translation, and American poets and critics have long taken this as their cue to subordinate translation to other forms of literary activity and to disqualify translated texts. In Transgressive Circulation, poet, translator, and publisher Johannes Goransson reverses this dynamic, holding that we should use translation to re-assess our entire aesthetic establishment. Rather than argue against the denigration and abjection of translation - and most foreign texts - this book investigates those dark zones of expulsion as grounds for new possibilities, not just for translation but for literature as a whole.   Johannes Göransson is the author of ten books of poetry and criticism - including The New Quarantine (2023) and Summer (2022) - and is the translator of several books of poetry, including works by Aase Berg, Eva Kristina Olsson, Ann Jäderlund, Helena Boberg and Kim Yideum. His poems, translations and critical writings hav