91吃瓜 director and poet has been awarded a in recognition of her creative ability in the arts and potential in future endeavors.
McSweeney, who is also a playwright, novelist, translator, critic and professor, was selected as a fellow with 179 other scientists, scholars聽and artists from nearly 2,500 applicants. John and Olga Simon Guggenheim created the fellowships in 1925 to 鈥渁dd to the educational, literary, artistic, and scientific power of this country."聽
鈥淚鈥檓 still taking it in, to be honest,鈥� said McSweeney shortly after she learned about the fellowship. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a spectacular show of confidence from the universe.鈥�
Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation and a 1985 poetry fellow, said the work the foundation supports is the collective effort 鈥渢o better understand the new world we鈥檙e in, where we鈥檝e come from, and where we鈥檙e going.鈥�
McSweeney is in good company: Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Ken Burns, Rachel Carson聽and Zora Neale Hurston are previous fellows. So, too, is , a professor in the , who was tapped in 2020.听
McSweeney is the 19th faculty member in the selected for a Guggenheim fellowship in the last 22 years.
鈥淚鈥檓 thrilled that Joyelle has received one of the world鈥檚 most prestigious and competitive fellowships, continuing our tradition of excellence with these awards.听It is a strong endorsement of the quality of her work and another signal of the growing stature of our creative writing program,鈥� said聽Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.
The Guggenheim is the latest significant honor this year for McSweeney, who has also recently won a translation prize and an award, and had a poem published in .
In January, the MLA 鈥� which promotes the study and teaching of languages and literatures 鈥� presented the professor and three of her collaborators with an award for their translation of 鈥淵i Sang: Selected Works鈥� from Korean and Japanese into English.
The MLA鈥檚 17th Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work was its first for a work of Korean literature. Avant-garde poet Kim Hye-ky艔ng, who used the pen name Yi Sang, was fluent in Korean and Japanese. He wrote in the 1930s in Korea during the Japanese occupation and died in 1937 at age 27 after being imprisoned in Tokyo for thought crimes.听
McSweeney worked with Jack Jung, visiting assistant professor of English at Davidson College; Sawako Nakayasu, assistant professor of literary arts at Brown University; and Don Mee Choi of Seattle, Washington, to translate poems, essays and short novels first published in Korean and Japanese, then 鈥渟ubjected to the hazards of war and neglect.鈥�
McSweeney said it鈥檚 gratifying that through the translated book, Yi Sang鈥檚 鈥渇orce is alive and moving around the planet and reaching people when they need it.鈥�
鈥淚t feels right to be part of a collaborative multinational team that worked on this; it points to the flexibility and invention of his works,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t took four of us, a supergroup of poets and translators. We needed all these minds and brains and artists to get at his playful and subversive work.鈥�
The selection committee said Yi Sang鈥檚 writing, which combines fable, fantasy, satire, parody, Dadaism, concrete poetry and quasi-translation, 鈥減resents a steep challenge to translation.鈥� But each member of the translation team has 鈥渞e-created in English Yi Sang鈥檚 terse, polyglot, self-undermining, dreamlike parables and essays. The elegant format and plural translating voices make this book a suitable monument to this intriguing figure.鈥�
McSweeney said the endeavor reminded her that literature is not exclusively about 鈥渢he finished text as an unchanging object that sits in its place in the official timeline.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 a whole process,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he world of art moves outward and moves through time periods. It鈥檚 thrilling to be part of the chain of reception.鈥澛�
In March, the American Academy of Arts and Letters 鈥� an honors society that administers prizes, donates art to museums, funds musical theater performances and hosts talks 鈥� named McSweeney as the recipient of its Arts and Letters Award in Literature for exceptional accomplishment in any genre. She said she appreciates the academy's 鈥渆ncouragement to keep going鈥� with her writing and its recognition of her distinctive work.
Depending on how you count, McSweeney said, her body of work includes eight or nine books of poetry, short stories, novels, essays, translations, verse plays and a book of criticism.
Her previous honors include being named a finalist for the for her double poetry collection,聽鈥�.鈥� McSweeney wrote the first part during the years leading up to the birth of her third daughter, Arachne, and wrote the second part in the spring following Arachne鈥檚 brief life and death. In February, the NYT Magazine 鈥淜ingdom鈥� from the collection.听
Also in 2021, her poem 鈥淧ost-NICU Villanelle,鈥� winner of a 2021 Pushcart Prize, was published in the Iowa Review.听She currently co-runs the translation press Action Books and is currently writing poems and a book of essays about poetry.
In 2021 and in 2014, McSweeney earned 91吃瓜鈥檚 鈥渇or her profound influence on undergraduate students through sustained exemplary teaching.鈥� Peer and student nominations are part of the selection process.
She said it鈥檚 rewarding to help bring students into empowerment and see them unlock what they love about language. McSweeney structures class like a party.听
鈥淚鈥檒l bring something, the students bring something, and we make something substantive together,鈥� she said.
Originally published by at on April 14.