Sarah Maguire (26 March 1957 – 2 November 2017) was a British poet, translator and broadcaster.

Life

Born in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, Sarah Maguire left school early to train as a gardener with the

London Borough of Ealing The London Borough of Ealing () is a London boroughs, London borough in London, England. It comprises the districts of Acton, London, Acton, Ealing, Greenford, Hanwell, Northolt, Perivale and Southall. With a population of 367,100 inhabitants, i ...

(1974–77). Her horticultural career had a significant impact on her poetry: her third collection of poems ''The Florist's at Midnight'' (Jonathan Cape, 2001) brought together all her poems about plants and gardens, and she edited the anthology ''Flora Poetica: the Chatto Book of Botanical Verse'' (2001). She was also Poet in Residence at

Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the scie ...

, and edited ''A Green Thought in a Green Shade'', essays by poets who have worked in a garden environment, published at the conclusion of this residency. Maguire was the first writer to be sent to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

(1996) and

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

(1998) by the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

. As a result of these visits she developed a strong interest in Arabic literature; she translated the Palestinian poets

Mahmoud Darwish Mahmoud Darwish (; 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinians, Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as Palestine's national poet. In 1988 Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was the formal declarat ...

and Ghassan Zaqtan and the Sudanese poet, Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (2008). With Yama Yari, Maguire co-translated the Afghan poet Partaw Naderi (2008); their translation of ''A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear'' by the leading Afghan novelist,

Atiq Rahimi Atiq Rahimi () (born 26 February 1962 in Kabul) is a France, French-Afghanistan, Afghan writer and filmmaker. Life Atiq Rahimi was born in 1962 in Kabul to a senior public servant and attended high school in Lycée Esteqlal. Following the Soviet ...

(Chatto & Windus, 2006) was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. She was the only living English-language poet with a book in print in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

- her collection of selected poems, ''Haleeb Muraq'' (Dar-Al Mada, 2003), was translated by the leading Iraqi poet Saadi Yousef. Maguire was the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre, which opened in 2004. The Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation was launched by the Poetry Translation Centre on 12 September 2019 to recognise and encourage quality translation of poetry into English.Introducing the Sarah Maguire Prize, Poetrytranslation.org, 22 Sept 2019. https://www.poetrytranslation.org/articles/introducing-the-sarah-maguire-prize

Awards

* 2008:

Cholmondeley Award The Cholmondeley Awards ( ) are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...

* 2001-03;

Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its lon ...

Writing Fellow at School of Oriental & African Studies,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

Works

Poetry Books

* * * * & not mentioned, Almost the Equinox - selected poems 2015 published by chatto & windus

Edited

* *

Translations

* * * *

Anthologies

References

External links

"Sarah Maguire"
''The British Council'' * James Byrne
"Interview"
''Wolf Magazine'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Maguire, Sarah 1957 births 2017 deaths English women poets Writers from London 20th-century British poets 21st-century British poets 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English writers 21st-century English women writers