Multilingual and multinational poet, translator, voice-over artist, teacher, dream analyst, and actor Hélène Cardona dialogues with Vassiliki Rapti and Peter Bottéas about her life’s path, her childhood and youth in Switzerland, France, Great Britain, and other places in Europe, her artistic pursuits and, especially, her poetry. Her connection with Greek culture through her mother, Spanish culture through her father, and her affinity for Native American spirituality and cultures through her travels in the Southwestern U.S. infuse her life and work, as do her roots in the French-speaking world.     

Hélène is a graduate of the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and studied literature and translation in Great Britain. She is known for acting her roles in the films Chocolat; The Hundred-Foot Journey; and many others. Since the recording of this podcast in July 2022, she has received several awards for her role in the delightful film Caralique. In addition, is the recipient of a Hemingway Grant, two Independent Press awards, and various other literary honors. The seven books she's published include three bilingual poetry collections. In this podcast, she reads several of her poems, including excerpts from the bilingual collection Life in Suspension/La vie suspendue. American poet and literary critic John Ashbery writes the following about Life in Suspension: "Dappled with transparent imagery, like the Mediterranean sunlight she grew up with, Hélène Cardona's poems offer a vivid self-portrait as scholar, seer, and muse." And David Mason, poet laureate of Colorado, describes her work as "Liminal, mystical and other-worldly. This is a poet who writes in a rare light."
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This podcast series, “Borders Unbound: The Poetry of the Hellenic Diaspora and Beyond,” was produced by Citizen TALES Commons, and is the recipient of a 2022 Modern Greek Studies Association Innovation Fund Grant. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Modern Greek Studies Association and the members of the Citizen TALES Diaspora Studies Consortium: the Hellenic American Project at Queens College (part of the City University of New York); the Institute for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Emmanuel College in Boston; and Citizen TALES Commons, a multidisciplinary collective of translators, artists, ludics learners, explorers, and storytellers, founded and directed by Vassiliki Rapti.