Paol Keineg (born February 6, 1944) is a
Breton-American writer and poet born in Quimerc'h (
Brittany).
He worked in several places in Brittany as a supervisor before becoming a teacher in
Morlaix. He was fired without any official reason in 1972, because of his political separatist leftist Breton points of view. He set up his first plays in 1973 : Le Printemps des Bonnets Rouges (The spring of the red hats) about an historical revolt in Brittany.
In the mid-1970s he moved to
California, where he worked illegally as a welder without a
green card. In 1977, he put his name down for
Brown University, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in 1981, without having defended a doctoral thesis. He taught French and literature in Dartmouth College, Brown University, and is now in
Duke University, after being invited to teach in Berkeley and Harvard universities.[1]
In 1975, he created the review called "Bretagnes", published in
Morlaix, where were published one of the first poems written by
Rita Dove.[2] In 1983, he created the review called "Poésie-Bretagne" (Poetry-Brittany). He writes his books in
Breton,
French and
English languages.