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The National Book Award Interviews: Sam Taylor and David Diop
By Words Without Borders
“When I translate, it’s just me and the text, and I work quickly, intuitively. If I ever try to slow down or analyze what I’m doing, I lose that sense of flow.”
Photos of National Book Award semifinalists Sophie Hughes and Fernanda Melchor
The National Book Award Interviews: Sophie Hughes and Fernanda Melchor
By Words Without Borders
“Trust is the lifeblood of successful author-translator collaborations, and by trusting me so unwaveringly, Fernanda has also shown me how to trust myself.”
Multimedia
Daniel Hahn stands at a podium reading his Ottaway Award acceptance speech
Daniel Hahn accepts the 2023 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature at an in-person ceremony in New York
“A Citizen in This Community”: Daniel Hahn’s Ottaway Award Acceptance Speech
By Daniel Hahn
We all know that translation is inevitably a collaborative practice: it’s writing, but it’s writing in company.
Multimedia
Esther Allen stands at a podium reading her laudatory remarks
Esther Allen makes laudatory remarks at the 2023 Ottaway Award ceremony honoring Daniel Hahn
The Multitudinous Daniel Hahn: A Laudation
By Esther Allen
He sees an opportunity, creates a network of support for it, and makes something transformative happen.
A portrait of Will Forrester
Photo credit: Grace Hutchison
Fostering Bibliodiversity: English PEN’s Will Forrester on the Goals of the PEN Presents Program
By Samantha Schnee
It’s in everyone’s interest to fund the often-unpaid labor of sample translation.
A black and white portrait of writer and editor Khairani Barokka holding a pen
Photo: Derrick Kakembo
“Curiosity and Excitement”: An Interview with Khairani Barokka
By Samantha Schnee
It’s about showing how poetry in translation is intertwined with innumerable parts of society, and can create resonances and collaborations that are precious, that last, that matter.
September-2022-International-Translation-Day-Feature
From left to right: Nicholas Glastonbury, Sawad Hussain, Yilin Wang, Stefan Tobler
What Comes after #NameTheTranslator?
By Yilin Wang, Stefan Tobler, Sawad Hussain & Nicholas Glastonbury
When we celebrate the increasing visibility of translation, we should also ask about what languages and literatures—and, consequently, what human experiences—are afforded visibility.
Portraits of Bibiana Mas and Aina Marti
Bibiana Mas (left); Aina Marti
An Interview with Two New Publishers of Women in Translation
By Words Without Borders
I thought I could create a space for sharing women’s global experiences through literary fiction. 
Map of German East Africa
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
German Medicine
By Abdulrazak Gurnah
Her mother was dead, she knew that, but she did not know why her aunt and her uncle were the ones who took her in.
Febrary-2022-City-and-Writer-Fiona-Sampson
Fiona Sampson. Photo copyright © Ekaterina Voskresenskaya.
The City and the Writer: In London with Fiona Sampson
By Nathalie Handal
London, which seems all sprawl and braggadocio, is at the same time self-contained and fiercely defended.
“The Joy of Cultural Mixing”: Daljit Nagra on Retelling the Classic Ramayana in Punglish
By Samantha Schnee
Humor was essential for my Ramayana.
Double portrait of writer Jhumpa Lahiri
Where I Find Myself
By Jhumpa Lahiri
I have come to think of any “definitive text” largely the same way that I think of a mother tongue, at least in my case: an inherently debatable, perpetually relative concept.
The Thrill of Reading Obliviously
By J. R. Ramakrishnan
A translated work’s pitch is aided by comparisons.
The Comparison Game
By Laurence Laluyaux
This game of comparisons, while not always accurate, can open doors and be thought-provoking.
History Interrupted: Georgia’s Broken Thread
By Maya Jaggi
Geography has been destiny for Georgia and its literature.
Multimedia
Portrait of writer Maya C. Popa
The City and the Writer: In Oxford with Maya C. Popa
By Nathalie Handal
Oxford is one hidden city layered over another.
The City and the Writer: In London with Jay Parini
By Nathalie Handal
London is a self-enclosed world that contains all worlds.
And What If Love Is Stronger? The Queer Issue
By Susan Harris
In this troubling context, the need for portrayals of queer lives around the world becomes even more urgent.
Queerying Translation
By B. J. Woodstein
There are feminist or postcolonial translation strategies so why not queer ones, too?
Me and Mycobacterium tuberculosis
By Shahaduz Zaman
“And that shadowy bit you see up there, that’s the thing that has me worried.”
Translated from Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya
Horsemeat of the Brothel
By Wang Bang
A “new girl” is always more desirable to the regular clients.
Melody in A Flat
By Ian Monk
in the basement she coughs then lights a smoke
Translated from French by the author
Multilingual
Partners in Crime: Bitter Lemon Press
By Laurence Colchester & François von Hurter
Astonishing as it may seem, we haven’t published any crime novels from Scandinavia.
A World of Editing
By Rebecca Carter
It is clear that there is a strong link between the strength of a novelistic tradition in a country and the power of the editor.
Translating Dino Buzzati: A Conversation with Marina Harss
By Michael McDonald
In addition to her freelance writing for the New Yorker’s Goings On About Town and her frequent forays into dance criticism, Marina Harss is also a versatile and prolific translator from French, Spanish,…
A Dialogue on Translating Germano Almeida
By Daniel Hahn & Clifford E. Landers
Editors’ Note: This month we present the first in a series of dialogues: two translators produce versions of the same text, then discuss their choices and approaches. Here Daniel Hahn and Clifford…
Petty Tyrants
By Conceição Lima
Petty tyrants / who founded kingdoms at the foot of their sorrow
Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson
The House
By Conceição Lima
Here I wanted my house built.
Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson
The Tale of the Sorceress
By Conceição Lima
San Malanzo was old, so old. San Malanzo was poor, so poor.
Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson
Friends
By Tirdad Zolghadr
A warden takes me by the arm as I slip on my blindfold and step out of the cell.
From “Desertion”
By Abdulrazak Gurnah
He forced himself to take shallow breaths, even though his instinct was to swallow huge heaving gulps to relieve the sense of suffocation he felt in the crowds and the alleyways.
Sprouts
By Zakariya Tamer
These essays don't even deserve a zero.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
Omega: Definitions
By Zeina B. Ghandour
I don't usually talk about my religion.
Love
By Esther Kinsky
Short said nothing, and no one found a word of comfort.
Translated from German by Martin Chalmers
Nausea
By Elif Shafak
Sorrow is a dirt for her, the moment she notices a speck of it smeared on her body, she scrubs it off her skin.
Translated from Turkish by the author
Women Writers, Islam, and the Ghost of Zulaikha
By Elif Shafak
First, the woman writer systematically refrains from writing on sexuality until she is old.
Translated from Turkish by the author
“God, It’s as Though You’re Sewing a Dress For a Flea”
By Hanan al-Shaykh
She whispers in my ear that she wants to be a singer in Nadia El-Arees's famous salon, and makes me promise to keep this desire of hers a secret.
Translated from Arabic by Randa Jarrar
From “In Other Words”
By Christopher J. Moore
These are among the words discussed by Christopher Moore in In Other Words:Arabic taarradhin Many commentators have pointed out that Arabic has no word for “compromise,” in the sense of reaching…
In Other Words: A Foreword
By Simon Winchester
The moment you understand the words and phrases and the wonderfully sensible concepts that they frequently encapsulate, you have come some small way toward understanding the people who employ them.
O for the Wings
By Christine De Luca
Smooth, dark slabs; floor to roof boxed / with stone shelfs like doorless cupboards.
Translated from Shetlandic by the author
Multilingual
Chance of a Lifetime
By Christine De Luca
From the airplane, streaks of light pick out / a little town, plumped down there by chance:
Translated from Shetlandic by the author
Multilingual
Star Sign
By Christine De Luca
Birth's struggle done, the midwife sets off home / down Neegirt's fields, with lit peat held for light.
Translated from Shetlandic by the author
Multilingual
The Calendar
By Ray Edwards
The Emperor Constantine / battling with a traitor / three hundred years later
Translated from Cornish by the author
Head over Heels
By Christine De Luca
And all the pointless fights that come / from thinking we can only see one way,
Translated from Shetlandic by the author
Multilingual
With These Rings
By Janet Paisley
You are fresh words / on the old stone of time.
Translated from Scots by the author
Multilingual
A Wish
By Christopher Whyte
I’d like to make picturesinstead of poems.That wayeach one would have its taleof sales and robberiesof rooms where it had hungof women and dear friendswho got it as a gift.They would have to be…
Translated from Scottish Gaelic by the author
Multilingual
scotland
By Janet Paisley
she'll turn your dreams to Scotch mist, / bone comb your hair with tugging wind / scrub your faces with rain.
Translated from Scots
Multilingual
The Chinese Beetle
By Christopher Whyte
In a certain region of China,in the southwest, not far from the mountains of Yunnan,a kind of apple is to be foundwith such an exquisite flavorthat in ancient times the emperors would spendtheir gold…
Translated from Scottish Gaelic by the author
Multilingual
Hawk Stones
By Janet Paisley
there is no stone where the hawk soars, / no hawk where the stones stand
Translated from Scots by the author
Multilingual
Loch
By Liz Niven
The loch knows its deeper stretches / where danger lurks;
Translated from Scots by the author
Multilingual
No Future Age Shall See His Name Expire
By Liz Niven
Before long your poem songs got you known, / to Edinburgh city next you were gone.
Translated from Scots by the author
Multilingual
Criffel to Merrick
By Liz Niven
In this poem, two of the region’s hills speak to each other. When a vehicle was needed for telling the story of Foot and Mouth, the hills seemed appropriate; they are very ancient, stand above the…
Translated from Scots by the author
Multilingual
On the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
By Boyd Tonkin
“It’s a scandal.” My companion, a distinguished translator of British literature into Greek, sighed and shook his head as we walked one night last summer through the tangle of streets…