Christian Gullette

Christian Gullette’s debut poetry collection Coachella Elegy (July 1, 2024) won the Trio House Press Trio Award. In The Washington Post Book Club, Ron Charles praised Coachella Elegy, writing, “These cool, elegantly controlled poems are about struggling to find peace in a frightening world.” And Publishers Weekly lauded Coachella Elegy as “Tender and deliciously sly…Gullette delivers a nuanced, well-paced collection.” And Coachella Elegy has been included in LitHub, Electric Lit, Alta Journal,and Debutiful lists of must-read poetry collections for 2024. His poems have appeared in The Washington Post, The American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series (selected by Diane Seuss). He is the recipient of a 2022 Bread Loaf scholarship. Christian also works as a professional Swedish-to-English translator. He’ll be on the poetry faculty of the 2025 Kenyon Review Winter Online Writers Workshops. He also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of The Cortland Review. Christian lives in San Francisco with his husband Michael.

Christian received his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley where he was recently a lecturer teaching courses to graduate and undergraduate students in Scandinavian literature, translation theory, and Swedish language instruction. He earned his M.F.A. from the Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program for Writers, his M.Ed. from the George Washington University, and a B.A. in English from Bates College.

Christian’s translations from the Swedish include poetry by Kristofer Folkhammar in ASTRA, Asymptote Journal, Words Without Borders, and the Action Books Blog. His translations of work by poet Jonas Modig have appeared in the Colorado Review. He has also translated books by notable chefs including Roy Fares, Lisa Lemke, and Elisabeth Johansson, as well as the cyclist Johan Tell.

Christian’s academic research in Swedish literature and film focuses on intersections of sexuality, gender, race, and neoliberalism spanning 19th century authors such as August Strindberg to his recent dissertation entitled “Challenging Swedishness: Intersections of Neoliberalism, Race, and Queerness in the Works of Jonas Hassen Khemiri and Ruben Östlund” (2018). His peer-reviewed article “Are Our Malls Safe? Race and Neoliberalism in Ruben Östlund’s Play” appeared in the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, and his peer-reviewed article “Plato, Spiritual Marriage, and the Disruptive Potential of Queerness in August Strindberg’s Giftas” was published in lambda nordica. 

In 2015, Christian was awarded the Aurora Borealis Prize for best graduate student presentation by the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies (SASS).

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