We're happy to announce that This Afterlife: Selected Poems by A.E. Stallings has been shortlisted for the London Hellenic Prize!

Now in its 27th year, the prize is awarded to an original work written in or translated into English on a subject relating to, or inspired by Hellenic civilisation, culture, history or literature. The London Hellenic Prize recognises works of originality and excellence in any of those fields.The winning shortlisted titles are often translated into Greek and published in Greece, supporting the Anglo-Hellenic cultural exchange which the prize was founded to support.

Congratulations Alicia!

Raised in Atlanta, Georgia but now living in Athens, Greece, A.E. Stallings' poems come out of life's dailiness - as a wife, mother, teacher, an expatriate between languages and a brilliant translator of ancient and modern Greek.

 In This Afterlife, current events and ancient history are always rubbing shoulders, where she explores motherhood, marriage, mortality and mythology with her trademark clarity and playfulness. She also translates Latin, her most notable large work being the Penguin Lucretius, translated into fourteeners.

Being a poet in Greece entails, for her, being part of that world. She was among volunteers helping refugees as they arrived in Greece, and their experience haunted her to write, 'My love, I'm grateful tonight / Our listing bed isn't a raft / Precariously adrift / As we dodge the coast guard light...' The sharp quatrain commends the observation to memory. The poems, without self-indulgence or confession, are intimate as they address 'My love', children or friends.