Jayat, Sandra

   Italy. Contemporary poet and artist. A self-taught Manouche Gypsy, she describes herself as "a daughter of the wind." Jayat is related to the renowned guitarist Django Reinhardt. She left Italy, where her parents lived, as a teenager and worked as a commercial artist in Paris. Small exhibitions culminated in having her work shown in the Grand Palais Salon. In 1985 she organized an international exhibition of Gypsy art in Paris and in 1992 exhibited at the Musée Bourdelle. The French government then commissioned her to create a postage stamp depicting "traveling people" in the same year.

   Among her collections of poems are Herbes Manouches (1961), illustrated by Jean Cocteau, and the 1963 publication Lunes nomades. She has also written a novel, El Romanes. Her many honors include the 1972 Children's Literature Prize (Paris), the Poetry Book Prize (Stockholm) in 1978, and an international prize for painting also in 1978. The book Nomad Moons (1995) contains translations into English by Ruth Partington from four of the poet's volumes, mainly, but not exclusively, from Lunes nomades.