Sarah Ruden

Criticism, Poetry

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Sarah Ruden is the world's leading translator of the ancient literature of the West. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MFA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins, and a PhD in classical philology from Harvard. Ruden has translated numerous volumes of classical literature, including Vergil’s Aeneid (2008) and St. Augustine’s Confessions (2017). In her book The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (2017), she seeks to make the Bible “less a thing of paper and glue and ink and more a live and loving text.” Her work is deeply concerned with questions of power and truth, in accordance with her Quaker faith.

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Festival Years: 2014

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