Hélène Cardona

Hélène Cardona is a French poet, linguist, literary translator and actor. She was born in Paris, the daughter of Spanish poet Jose Manuel Cardona, from Ibiza, and a Greek mother.^[1] She is a citizen of France, Spain, and the United States.^[2]

Cardona at 2014 Puterbaugh Festival

Biography

She studied in the University of Cantabria, Spain and in the Sorbonne in Paris, gaining a master's degree in American Literature.^[3] She has received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut and the International University of Andalucía.^[3]

Cardona has worked as a translator for the French Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Embassy, and for the film industry.^[1][4] her book Life in Suspension won the 2017 International Book Award in Poetry.^[5]

She played the part of Françoise "Fuffi" Drou, the beauty shop proprietor in the film Chocolat.

Works

She is author of:

• Dreaming My Animal Selves (Bilingual English/French)^[6][7]
• The Astonished Universe/ L'Univers Stupefait^[2]
• Life in Suspension^[8]

She has translated:

• José Manuel Cardona's Birnam Wood/ El Bosque de Birnam (Bilingual English/Spanish)^[9]
• Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac's Beyond Elsewhere^[10]
• Dorianne Laux's Ce que nous portons^[11]
• Walt Whitman's Civil War Writings (Whitman et la Guerre de Sécession) ^[12]

Awards

• 2022 Cult Critic Movie Awards^[13]