September 30 is International Translation Day, celebrated annually on the feast of St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators. Today we’re giving thanks for the worldwide network of writers, translators, publishers, and organizations that make the translation community so vital, and asking you, loyal WWB readers, to share your love of translation with the world!
Read on for our favorite reasons to celebrate translation on International Translation Day and every day.
1. We’ll need translators in order to communicate when aliens touch down: Three Translators Respond to “Arrival”
2. Sometimes the language of love isn’t your native tongue—but you can still find love in other languages: Love in Translation
3. Like “squeezing a jellyfish,” massaging language and grasping at slippery meanings is not for the faint of heart: 36 Metaphors for Translation
4. We wouldn’t think to call a wine “as smooth as a baby Jesus in velvet knickerbockers” without a little help from the French: Eleven of the World’s Quirkiest Phrases
5. Translators are so gorgeous, some people commission their portraits: Introducing Culture Trip’s 20 Translators Under 40
6. The gaps between languages always leave something to the imagination: This Instagram Artist is Illustrating Untranslatable Words and the Result Will Make You Feel Ambedo
7. No matter how good machine translation gets, human ingenuity prevails: Humans Triumph Over Machines in Translation Competition
8. With subtitles, TV becomes an immersion in different cultures. Couch potato? More like cosmopolitan: Translating the World’s Best Television: An Interview with Walter Iuzzolino
9. Translation fosters creativity and collaboration at any age: Visiting the Real America, Where Seven-Year-Olds Translate Don Quixote
10. Translators have superpowers! How else could anyone publish eight books in two years?: The Making of a Tireless Literary Translator
11. New translations keep classics accessible and fresh—and sometimes greet the birth of new languages: “El Little Príncipe”—Translating Saint-Exupéry’s Classic into Spanglish
If you, like us, couldn’t imagine life without translation, please take a moment today to share this article or your own reasons for celebrating translation.
And if you want to mark the occasion by showing your support for groups promoting literature in translation, here are some organizations that stand out to us in this ever-growing community:
Magazines & Journals
91st Meridian, Agni, Anomaly, The Arkansas International, Asymptote, Buenos Aires Review, Cipher Journal, Guernica, InTranslation (The Brooklyn Rail), Litro, A Public Space, [sic], Silk Road Review, Three Percent, Trafika Europe, Words Without Borders, World Literature Today.
Publishers
Akashic Books, Amazon Crossing, And Other Stories, Anomalous Press, Archipelago Books, Balestier Press, Biblioasis, BOA Editions, Coffee House Press, Dalkey Archive Press, Deep Vellum Publishing, DoppelHouse Press, Europa Editions, Graywolf Press, Hispabooks, Les Figues Press, The Margellos World Republic of Letters (Yale University Press), Melville House Books, New Directions Publishing, New Vessel Press, New York Review Books, Open Letter Books, Oneworld Publications, Other Press, Phoneme Media, Pushkin Press, Restless Books, Seagull Books, Seven Stories Press, Swan Isle Press, Tin House Books, Transit Books, Twisted Spoon Press, Two Lines Press, Ugly Duckling Presse, Verso Books, Wakefield Press, Weyward Sisters Publishing, White Pine Press, Zephyr Press.