email

obinfo@obfuchai.com

This website & contents ©1987-2009 Olivier Burckhardt

The calligraphy on the banner, adapted from a Chinese ink rubbing,
is by Mi Fu (1051-1107), one of the great Song dynasty masters.
The two characters read fu floating & chai (zhai in pin-yin) which means studio or retreat.

The calligraphy on the banner, adapted from a Chinese ink rubbing, is by Mi Fu (1051-1107), one of the great Song dynasty masters. The two characters read fu floating & chai which means studio or retreat.
Hence: Floating Studio.

 

Wellcome to www.obfuchai.com,

Olivier Burckhardt’s

Floating Studio (Fu Chai).

Only by seeking
is my heart not obscured.

 

Educated in Italy, France, and England before migrating to Australia, Olivier Burckhardt is a poet, essayist, translator, and visual artist.

An Honorary Fellow, English Literary Studies, The University of Melbourne, he is currently working on “Poetics East of West,” a book of essays on cross-cultural poetics.

His poetry, essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in:

The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, PN Review, The Irish Review, The Independent on Sunday, London Magazine, Contemporary Review, Quadrant, et al. 
The Swiss Institute in Rome, where he was a Fellow in residence in 2000, published his “Rome River Poems” a sequence of poems in Italian.

Languages: mother-tongue fluency in Italian & French; a working knowledge of Classical Chinese.

On this web site you will find samples of his poetry, such as Migrant Tongue: Battos in Australia (including a recording); writings and essays on language, history, poetry & poetics; reviews of translations and titles that reflect an eclectic interest in the humanities & matters both ancient & modern, and that sphere of interest that can be said to lie East—of—West.

Recently added:

January 2010
Love and war
Review of The Selected Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti: A Critical English Edition edited by Simon West (Troubador Italian Studies, 2009)
Publishied in TLS, 22 Jan. 2010

June 2009
The Rhythm of the Brush
A review-essay on Chinese Calligraphy, Edited by Ouyang Zhongshi & Wen C. Fong (Yale University Press 2008) that explores the motion of the brush as the hallmark of Chinese calligraphy.
Published in Quadrant, June 2009

May 2009
Renaissance rapper
details of a review of Baldo, by Teofilo Folengo. Macaronic masterpiece of Renaissance poetry.
Published in The Guardian Review of Books, 27 Dec. 2008

May 2009
Burckhardt Family Background
A page about the patrician family of Basel, the family coat-of-arms, and The Burckhardt Family Book 1490-1890 (pdf).

January 2009
Pencilled Lines on Poetry: Notes from a loose-leaf pad is a blog-like series of informal jottings and reading notes that includes original material as well as translations; quotes; etc ...