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Contributor

Megan McDowell

Portrait of translator Megan McDowell

Photo Credit: Camila Valdés

Contributor

Megan McDowell

United States

Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today, including Samanta Schweblin, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enriquez, and Lina Meruane. Her translations have won the English PEN award and the Premio Valle-Inclán, and been nominated four times for the International Booker Prize....

Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, Words Without Borders, and Granta, among others. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is from Richmond, KY and lives in Santiago, Chile.

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Articles by Megan McDowell

Hiding in Plain Sight: Carlos Fonseca and Megan McDowell on Translating “Natural History”

By Megan McDowell

Carlos Fonseca's Natural History (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) is a singularly difficult book to describe. It’s always hard to sum up an entire novel in a few words, but this one…

Story of a Sheet

By Alejandro Zambra

Days before my dad set the house on fire, there was a sheet drying bit by bit.

Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell

I Never Wanted to Sock You in the Face, Javier

By Juan Álvarez

Why didn’t you let the old man go, dude?

Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell

Large cuts of meat roast on a grill

Photo by Deby Rodriguez on Unsplash

The Art and Horror of the Argentine Asado

By Mariana Enríquez

The asado and political violence are linked in Argentina.

Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell

Multilingual

First Read—From “Camanchaca” by Diego Zúñiga

By Diego Zúñiga

Diego Zúñiga’s Camanchaca, translated by Megan McDowell and out March 7 from Coffee House Press, follows a young man on a long, near-silent drive with his father across Chile’s…

Translated by Megan McDowell

Like a Rolling Stone

By Enrique Prochazka

That extraordinary screeching had been artificial: it hadn’t come from the ice, but from a weapon.

Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell

Multilingual

From “Ayer”

If they show up, one by one I will grab them by the neck with my left hand and, with that machete in the right, I’ll stir their guts until they fall down dead, dead, dead!

Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell