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Translation

A boat on the coast of Gujarat at sunset
Photo by Pandav Tank on Unsplash
Translating Gujarat: On Raising Visibility and Sharing Literary Wealth
By Jenny Bhatt
For translators from under-represented languages like ours, the act of translation can also be a mode of recovery and reclamation.
Portrait of Dr. Sachin Ketkar
Into English: Sachin Ketkar on Bilingual Translation
By Jenny Bhatt
Translation is an extension of my preoccupations as a creative writer.
Multimedia
A river winds through the hilly green countryside in northern Sweden
Photo by Fredrik Posse on Unsplash
The Same River Twice: Notes on Reading, Time, and Translation
By Saskia Vogel
I have been opening this book since 2018 and over the years, I have become many different readers.
An old, sepia toned photograph of a young girl
Photo by Robin Myers
Hosts and Guests
By Robin Myers
Translation, an obsessive interpretive art in which the boundaries between guest and host are tenderly and strenuously unstable, is my constant companion while I learn what it means to build a life in a country and culture different from the one I was…
Multimedia
Jenny Bhatt (left) and Rita Kothari (right)
On the Evolution and Craft of Gujarati Literature in Translation
By Jenny Bhatt
We do not see translations of books that will unsettle the reading community, and provoke them to be different than who they want to be.
Left, the Romanian cover of Mircea Cartarescu's Solenoid; center, translator Sean Cotter; right,...
Romanian Translation’s Johnny Appleseed: An Interview with Sean Cotter
By Clara Burghelea
We shall see if the hype in the United States reaches the levels Cărtărescu garners in Colombia, where he needed a police cordon to get through his crowd of fans.
May-2022-In-Praise-of-Echo-Jhumpa-Lahiri-Echo-Flying-from-Narcissus-Guy-Head-Feature
"Echo Flying from Narcissus" by Guy Head. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
In Praise of Echo
By Jhumpa Lahiri
We must be careful not to equate the word echo with simple repetition, and it speaks to me personally, acutely, about what it means to shift from writer to translator and back again.
A baby doll sits by a window
Photo by Jay Mistry on Unsplash
The Lost Translator
By Michael F. Moore
It is all the more disturbing, then, that neither Gyllenhaal in her interviews nor the film’s end credits or press kit makes any mention of the translator whose work was the basis for the script: Ann Goldstein.
Transcending the Human Viewpoint
By Madeleine Feeny
I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.
A glowing diamond with light radiating from it
Photo by kirklai on Unsplash
We Need More Speculative Fiction in Translation
By Rachel Cordasco
Despite this recent wave of SFT, there are still a number of barriers preventing more of it from going mainstream in the Anglophone world.
Mike Fu and Jenna Tang on Mentorship, Taiwanese Literature, and Translating Trauma
By Mike Fu & Jenna Tang
In 2021, Mike Fu and Jenna Tang worked together through the Emerging Translator Mentorship Program of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), with a focus on prose from Taiwan. Fu had published…
Tribades
By Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu
Whatever you do in Turkey, you do it alone.
Translated from Turkish by Ralph Hubbell
Who Translates?
By the Editors of Words Without Borders
In the wake of 2020’s racist violence, and subsequent organizing by the Black Lives Matter movement and others to combat white supremacy, literary magazines and publishers everywhere have, to differing…
The Great White Canceling
By Anton Hur
Translator Anton Hur takes a wry look at race and translation in this essay.You’re a white translator. I come into your home office and break your computer. I run a bath and drown all your…
Privilege, Race, and Translation
By Corine Tachtiris
Scholar and translator Corine Tachtiris reflects on the inherent privilege of translating while White in this essay.And if there are few Black translators, there are few representatives of the possibility…
Barriers, Privileges, and Invisible Labor: A Sino Diaspora Translator’s Perspective
By Yilin Wang
Translator Yilin Wang addresses various forms of bias in translation from Asian Languages in this essay.“You must teach yourself how to carry loan words,tiny seeds gift-wrapped like hand-me-down heirlooms…
The Translator Relay: Julia Powers
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
How Can We Better Publish Black Writers in Translation?
By the Editors of Words Without Borders
This month, WWB took a look back at some of the important writing on race and racism to be found in the magazine's archives.
Publishers Need More Black Translator Friends
By Aaron Robertson
There are obstacles translators must face before the international sections of bookstores reflect the world more equitably.
Respecting the Diversity of Creativity
By Évelyne Trouillot
It would be naive to speak of editorial decisions without taking into account power relationships and established patterns of prejudice that undergird the publishing industry.
Translated from French by Paul Curtis Daw
Developing a Publishing Infrastructure in Mozambique
By Sandra Tamele
Running a start-up publisher in Mozambique is challenging, particularly because sales are low due to a nonexistent distribution network and too few bookshops, all located in the capital city.
The Translator Relay: Sophie Duvernoy
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
The Translator Relay: Jack Jung
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
The Translator Relay: Don Mee Choi
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
The Translator Relay: Kristin Dykstra
By Words Without Borders
 WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different,…
The Translator Relay: Urayoán Noel
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
The Translator Relay: Regina Galasso
By Words Without Borders
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every few months. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth…
Exploring Italian Language, Rap, and Migration through Translation
By Donatella Melucci
In my Italian translation course at Georgetown University, advanced students of Italian learn about translation theory and practice (English-Italian, and vice versa) of different genres, including newspaper…
Notes from the Classroom: On Teaching Translation
By Jenny McPhee
I am old enough to remember when creative writing was something you “couldn’t teach” and was considered by the academy to be a less than legitimate area of study. (Journalism didn’t…
Salam
By Shirin Nezammafi
They were the hands of someone who had never heard of hand cream.
Translated from Japanese by Aoi Matsushima
From Rainbow Bird
By Shun Medoruma
Even after the credits stopped rolling and the blue government warning turned into a blizzard of static, Katsuya kept staring at the screen, a vague grin on his face.
Translated from Japanese by Sam Malissa
Beyond the Circle: Minority Voices of Japan
By Sam Bett
What these authors share, as insiders to the Japanese language, is a firsthand perspective on a culture whose monoethnic self-image often excludes them by default.
Tokyo Ueno Station
By Yu Miri
My reticence and my incompetence troubled me more than my appearance, but most intolerable was my unluckiness.
Translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles
The Translator Relay: Ellen Cassedy
By Jessie Chaffee
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator every other month. The current month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question.…
The Translator Relay: Laura Esther Wolfson
By Jessie Chaffee
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator each month. This month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question.September’s…
The Poem as Epiphyte
By Fady Joudah
Hope in the right place, you said, is hope misplaced
Alms for the Versemaker: An International Appreciation of John Ashbery
By Eric M. B. Becker
One year after the passing of John Ashbery, three poets and translators pay tribute to the great American poet.
Remembering John Ashbery
By Hiroaki Sato
Ashbery fetched me a drink. I got drunk fast. And what did I prattle on about? The art of translation!
The Poetics of John Ashbery: Reflections from the Poet’s Uruguayan Translator
By Roberto Echavarren
John Ashbery wrote to be read rather than heard.
Translated from Spanish by Charlotte Whittle
The Translator Relay: Chet Wiener
By Jessie Chaffee
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator each month. This month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question.For February’s installment,…
The Translator Relay: Samuel Rochery
By Jessie Chaffee
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator each month. This month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question.For January’s installment,…
The Translator Relay: Simon Brown
By Jessie Chaffee
WWB’s Translator Relay features an interview with a different translator each month. This month’s translator will choose the next interviewee, adding a different, sixth question.For December’s…
From One to Many for One: Teaching Translation through Multiple Translations
By Martha Collins
Martha Collins is the coeditor, with Kevin Prufer, of Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf Press, November 2017).Some years ago, I was asked to teach a two-week summer workshop about…
Translating for Theater
By Paul Russell Garrett
I believe [theater translators] should be invited to participate, to investigate, to collaborate with theaters, working alongside theater practitioners and actors.
The Strangeness of the Theater Translator
By William Gregory
Theater translation seems to have struggled to establish itself as a discipline, not least because it has no single field in which to sit exclusively.
translation
By Maja Haderlap
here sentences must disrobe
Translated from German by Tess Lewis
Translation vs. Creative Writing Workshops: Structural Differences
By Roger Sedarat
As a track within the MFA Program at Queens College, literary translation tends to follow the pedagogical models of creative writing in poetry, fiction, and drama. Operating on the principle that better…
The Playlist: Teaching Translation, Curating Texts
By Richard Lee Pierre
In teaching undergraduate courses on literature in translation at the University of Michigan, I encourage students to engage with our readings in creative ways. I periodically like to treat class time…
Stealth Methods: Teaching Translation
By B. J. Woodstein
I admit it: I’m sneaky when it comes to international literature. I try to sneak translated texts and even just the awareness of language and translation into all of my classes. And why not? Literature…
Viva Translation!
By Luis Magrinyà
Translation is and should be a specialized occupation, but that doesn’t mean its natural audience should consist entirely of specialists.
Translated from Spanish by Anne McLean
Multilingual
Exploiting the Translator’s Mind Palace: Contemporary German Fiction 101
By Katy Derbyshire
As a single parent of a teenager, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to earn extra money without doing less literary translation work, which I love and which provides about half of my income. I am…
Ghost Writers
By Claude Bleton
The national sport of Spain, not counting soccer, is drinking cold beer and eating tapas.
Translated from French by Jean Anderson
The Translator
By Jacques Gélat
Translators are often congratulated, but never admired.
Translated from French by Edward Gauvin
Many Voices: A Life in Translation
By Suzanne Jill Levine
Authors are translators and translators are authors.
In Translation: An Interview with Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky
By David Auerbach
Each text requires a different voice, a different English.
The Advanced Language Class as Translation Workshop
By Jason Grunebaum
A wonderful, and perhaps underappreciated, way to bring international literature into the classroom is through transforming advanced language classes into translation workshops. While language classes…
Teaching in Translation: The Translation Workshop
By Becka Mara McKay
I was hired in 2009 to teach translation in Florida Atlantic University’s MFA program—something that had never been offered in the MFA curriculum. To encourage as many students as possible…
Teaching in Translation: Poet as Translator
By Malena Morling
Editor's note: This essay was delivered at the panel “Teaching Translation in the Workshop,” organized by Douglas Unger and with presentations by Jason Grunebaum, Becka McKay, Malena Morling,…
Teaching in Translation: Teaching the Sagas
By Richard North
I started teaching the Icelandic Sagas just over twenty years ago. I had read some of them as a student, and though they didn’t feature in my research when I did my doctoral thesis, I was glad to…
Teaching in Translation: These Pines
By Adriana X. Jacobs
With this post we launch our new series on teaching in translation. Whether teaching in their areas of specialization or shouldering introductory world literature courses, teachers at all levels face…