Catalan translator for Amanda Gorman poem removed

The Catalan translator for the poem that American writer Amanda Gorman read at US president Joe Biden’s inauguration has said he has been removed from the job because he had the wrong “profile”.

It was the second such case in Europe after Dutch writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld resigned from the job of translating Gorman’s work following criticism that a black writer was not chosen, The Guardian reports.

“They told me that I am not suitable to translate it,” Catalan translator Victor Obiols told AFP on Wednesday.

“They did not question my abilities, but they were looking for a different profile, which had to be a woman, young, activist and preferably black.”

Gorman, a 23-year-old African American, was widely lauded for her reading of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s 20 January inauguration. The poem was inspired by the US Capitol attack and touched on how democracy “can never be permanently defeated”.

She was the youngest poet ever to recite at a presidential inauguration, a role first given to Robert Frost by John F Kennedy in 1961.

It also came at a time of intense debate in the US over the country’s history of racism toward its black population and the legacy of slavery.

The Catalan translator for the poem that American writer Amanda Gorman read at US president Joe Biden’s inauguration has said he has been removed from the job because he had the wrong “profile”.

It was the second such case in Europe after Dutch writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld resigned from the job of translating Gorman’s work following criticism that a black writer was not chosen, The Guardian reports.

“They told me that I am not suitable to translate it,” Catalan translator Victor Obiols told AFP on Wednesday. “They did not question my abilities, but they were looking for a different profile, which had to be a woman, young, activist and preferably black.”

Gorman, a 23-year-old African American, was widely lauded for her reading of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s 20 January inauguration. The poem was inspired by the US Capitol attack and touched on how democracy “can never be permanently defeated”.

She was the youngest poet ever to recite at a presidential inauguration, a role first given to Robert Frost by John F Kennedy in 1961.

It also came at a time of intense debate in the US over the country’s history of racism toward its black population and the legacy of slavery.