Literary Event for Pierre Joris Posthumous New Book Release

Consul General Mr. Luc Decker and Mrs. Nicole Peyrafitte, Pierre Joris’ widow, hosted a book presentation and reception to celebrate Mr. Joris’s memory and posthumous new book release: In Between Keep Moving: A Pierre Joris Reader (2026) on Thursday April 23, at the Luxembourg House in New York City. 
 

This  memorable evening was centered on Pierre Joris and the Luxembourgish heritage that he talks about in this book. It included a 15-minute movie on Mr. Joris, in which guests were able to listen to the author doing some reading himself.

Over 50 were present to commemorate the life and literary work of Pierre Joris (1946–2025) who was first and foremost a poet — a writer whose work moved across languages, geographies, and traditions with remarkable range and intensity. Over the course of his life, he published more than 80 books of poetry, essays, translations, and anthologies, building a body of work that is both expansive and deeply interconnected. Recent publications include POASIS II: Selected Poems 2020–2024 (Wesleyan University Press, 2025) and A Pierre Joris Reader: In Between Keep Moving (Contra Mundum Press, 2026), the latter offering a wide-ranging selection of his writing across decades. Alongside his own poetry, Joris devoted many years to translation, most notably bringing into English the work of Paul Celan in landmark volumes such as Breathturn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) and Memory Rose into Threshold Speech (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), as well as Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Contra Mundum Press, 2020). Paul Celan (1920–1970) was a major German-language poet, widely regarded as one of the most important of the twentieth century. Pierre Joris also translated numerous other authors and edited important anthologies, while remaining, first and foremost, a poet.

Among his many distinctions are the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation (2021), awarded in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in literary translation, and the Batty Weber Prize for Lifetime Literary Achievement (2020), Luxembourg’s highest literary honor. 

For more information about Pierre Joris, please visit: https://www.pierrejoris.com/