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Biographies of Contributors

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JAMES O’BRIEN is Professor Emeritus of Japanese at the University of Wisconsin. He continues to translate modern Japanese poems and to publish these as the occasion presents itself. Poems by Kitahara Hakushu (1885-1942) and Hagiwara Sakutaro (1886-1942) appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Metamorphoses.

TERRENCE ODLIN is Associated Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio State University. He has published widely on second language acquisition and language transfer, topics on which he has lectured frequently worldwide. He is an avid amateur photographer.

STEVE O’HALLORAN is a poet residing in Northampton.

JEONG-HUI OH is one of the most acclaimed writers of the post-Korean War generation and her short stories often deal with the interior landscape of women. Since making her debut in 1968, she has published four short story collections, the latest one in 1994, and has won many prestigious literary awards in Korea including the Yi Sang Literature Award in 1979.

AKINLOYE OJO, a native of Nigeria, received his BA from the University of Ibadan. He holds an MA from Cornell and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Georgia where he now teaches Yoruba and African Studies. His research interest is in socio-linguistics. His first collection of poems, In Flight was published in 2000.

CARLOS DE OLIVEIRA (1921-1981) published five novels and ten collections of poetry and was also a painter. Considered a neo-realist, he also reveals symbolist, surrealist, and cubist tendencies. Outside of Portugal and Brazil, de Oliveira is best known in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and England. One of his novels, Bee in the Rain, was turned into a movie. Alexis Levitin’s authorized translations of his work have appeared in or are forthcoming in: Beacons, Cream City Review, Great River Review, Greenfield Review, International Poetry Review, Luna, Marlboro Review, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, the new renaissance, Osiris, Paintbrush, and Visions International.

NELSON DE OLIVEIRA is from Sao Paulo. He received his doctorate in letters from the Universidade de Sao Paulo. He published many books, including Naquela epoca tinhamos um gato (1998), Treze (1999), Subsolo infinito (2000), O filho do crucificado (2001), and A maldicao do macho (2002). He also organized many anthologies, among them Geracao 90 (2001, 2003), Manuscritos de computador (2001), and Os transgressores (2003). Oliveira has received several prizes, including Casa de las Americas (1995 and 2011), Fundacao Cultural do Estado da Bahia (1996), Best Short Stories Collection and Best Editorial Project from Associacao Paulista dos Criticos de Arte (2001 and 2003), and Premio Clarice Lispector, Fundacao Biblioteca Nacional (2007). In 2010 he published Poeira: demonios e maldicoes, and afterwards started publishing science-fiction novels under the pseudonym of Luiz Bras. One of these novels, Sozinho no deserto extremo, was nominated for the Portugal Telecom prize in 2013.

ANDREA E. OLSEN has a Master’s degree in translation from Rutgers University (2008). She teaches Spanish at Biotechnology High School in Freehold, NJ.

ZAJA OMBOGA, born in Kenya, is Lecturer in the Department of Kiswahili, College of Education and External Studies of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where he teaches Kiswahili language and literature and courses in translation. His published translations include the popular Longhorn Reading Scheme for children Books 1-10: Sungura Yuko Hapa, Nyumba ya Sungura, Sungura ni Mbaya, Sungura ya Wapi? Karamu, Ulimbo Langoni, Mwanamke na Malewe, Hadithi za Mamba, Mbawa za Kobe, and Kiundu Akosa Karamu. His book on translation, Mbinu na Stadi za Mawasilano, is currently under review by Longhorn. He has also published a resource handbook for retirees called Ubunifu na Biashara Ndogo Ndogo, Mwongozo kwa Wastaagu (Civil Service Reform Programme, Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme).

JAN ONDRUS (1932- ) is the author of six collections of poetry. He has been hailed by a prominent critic, Milan Hamada, as an “absolute poet,” one whose concern with the fundamental problems of modern man make him a bearer of a universal message accessible world-wide.

REMMY ONGALA was born in 1947 Ramadhani Mtoro Ongala in the extreme East of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since 1978, he has been living in Tanzania. He labels his type of music “Bongo Beat” and he has proclaimed himself the voice of the downtrodden in Tanzania. He is known for his politically outspoken and socially controversial song lyrics.

DIMITRI ORAM has studied Russian in Scotland, the United States, and at the University of Yaroslavl in Russia. He is currently a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

LYDIA MIRANDA ORAM holds a Diploma (con honores) de ciclo superior de Castellano, from Escuela de Idiomas, Alicante, Spain; a BA in Spanish and Italian from Smith College; MA in Italian from Columbia University; PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University. She has taught at Columbia and NYU, and published translations from Spanish and Italian as well as critical articles. She is a free-lance translator and editor.

VALÉRIE K. ORLANDO, Professor of French & Francophone Literatures in the Department of French & Italian at the University of Maryland, is the author of four books: Screen Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society(Ohio UP, 2011), Francophone Voices of the ‘New Morocco’ In Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition (Palgrave-Macmillian, 2009), Of Suffocated Hearts and Tortured Souls: Seeking Subjecthood Through Madness in Francophone Women’s Writing of Africa and the Caribbean (Lexington Books, 2003) and Nomadic Voices of Exile: Feminine Identity in Francophone Literature of the Maghrb (Ohio University Press, 1999).

JEREMY OSNER is a computer programmer living in New Jersey. His previous publications include “Requiem” in Words Without Borders and Hernn Rivera Letelier’s “The Art of Resurrection” in Two Lines. He blogs about translation at readin.com

IZTOK OSOJNIK has published eighteen books of poetry, four novels, and a collection of literary essays. His most recent poetry publications are Gospod Danes (Mister Today) and Pesmi Nica (Poems of Nothing). The English translation of his Mister Today was published by Jacaranda Press in 2003. His work has received many awards and has been translated into many languages. He has translated poetry from Chinese, English, Spanish, and Croatian. For several years he was the director of the International Literary Festival at Vilenica. Now a free-lance writer and translator, he lives in Ljubjlana, Slovenia.

OSSIAN (Also Oisin) A legendary Gaelic warrior and bard said to have lived in the third century, whose tale of Finn (Fingal) provided the basis for James MacPherson’s spurious transciprtions. What historical facts they embody are Irish, though Scotland, too, lays claim to them.

MONIR OTAIBA is an Egyptian writer who resides in Alexandria. He is a founding board member of the Arab Union for Internet Writers, Coordinator of Bibliotheque Alexandrina’s weekly Narrative Seminar, co-editor of Alexandrian Waves magazine, and a drama script writer for Radio Alexandria. He is the author of seven collections of short stories: Chicken United (1998), The Prince who was Chased by Death (2000), Al Bibany Stories (2002), The Meadow of Kohl (2005), Breaking Sadness (2007), Blood Spots on a Tree(2009), and The Bride’s Juggler. He has also written two novels, Al Ghoneimy Stories (2001) and Asad Al kaffash (2010) as well as two collections of children’s stories and a play. The short story, “Nine Beads for the Coming One,” is from his fourth collection of short stories, The Meadow of Kohl (Marg el kohl) (2005). The stories in the collection are steeped in fantasy and draw on popular Egyptian folklore, oral literature and old myths. Otaiba has won many awards in local and international short story competitions. Many of his translated stories have been taught in literature departments at Harvard University, Helwan, Alexandria and Al-Monufeiya Universities in Egypt. Otaiba holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Alexandria University and an MBA from the Arab Academy of Science and Technology. He currently works as an HR Manager at Lecico Ceramics.

JULIA OTXOA was born in 1953 in San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa). Poet and writer, her work has won various prizes. She is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers, currently writing for Diario Vasco de San Sebastián; Diario Bilbao; the magazine Leer in Madrid, among others. She has written over seven volumes of poetry and has been anthologized in several books of both regional and national contemporary poetry.

ORM ØVERLAND teaches American literature and American Studies at the University of Bergen in Norway. Recent books are Immigrant Minds, American Identities: Making the United States Home, 1870-1930 (2000) and The Western Home: A Literary History of Norwegian America (1996), both with University of Illinois Press. For the latter he was awarded the American Studies Network Prize for best European book in American Studies 1996-1997. In cooperation with the Longfellow Institute, Harvard University, he is the editor of a forthcoming translation of a Norwegian-American novel about Minneapolis in the 1880s, A Saloonkeeper’s Daughter by Drude Krogh Janson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). In 1998 he was awarded The Norwegian Association of Literary Translators’ Fiftieth Anniversary Book Reviewer Prize.

OVID (Publius Ovidius Naso) ( 42 BC–17 AD), one of the most influential poets of ancient Rome. His 15-book epic Metamorphoses laid the foundation for much of Western literature and mythology; among his most popular and controversial works are three books of Amores (Love Songs); a 3-volume Ars amatoria (The Art of Love) and Remedia amoris (Cures for Love).

JAN OWEN is a South Australian writer whose sixth book Poems 1980-2008 was published by John Leonard Press in 2008. In October 2010 she was a guest at the Maastricht International Poetry Nights where De Kus, a selection of her poems in Dutch was published by Azul Press. She is currently completing a MS of translations from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.

EMINE SEVGI ÖZDAMAR First came to Germany from Turkey in 1965. She studied acting in Berlin and Istanbul, and produced her own play, Karagöz in Alamania, in Frankfurt in 1987. Currently reading in Düsseldorf.