Upcoming Translation Events February 2023

Wednesday, February 1:

Colloquy: Translators in Conversation | Please join us for the third installment of Colloquy: Translators in Conversation, with readings and discussion from Nicole Simek, Pierre Joris, and Mark Polizzotti on translating the Francophone world. The event will moderated by Colloquy curator C. Francis Fisher. In-person. Hosted by the Brooklyn Public Library. More info here. 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. (ET)

Thursday, February 2:

Tangled Legacies: Jünger’s Marble Cliffs | Ernst Jünger’s On the Marble Cliffs is both a mesmerizing work of fantasy and an allegory of the advent of fascism. Tess Lewis, translator of this new edition, published by New York Review Books, is joined by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, author of the introduction, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and Corey Rubin, political theorist and journalist, for a discussion of this caliginous masterpiece. In-person. Hosted by the Goethe-Institut New York and co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and New York Review Books. More info here. Register here. 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. (ET)

Friday, February 3:

Eugene Ostashevsky and Genya Turovskaya in Conversation: A discussion of The Feeling Sonnets | Join n+1 for a discussion between the poets Eugene Ostashevsky and Genya Turovskaya. They’ll be discussing ghost languages, host languages, translation, and Ostashevsky’s new collection The Feeling Sonnets. The event is free and open to the public. In-person. Hosted by n+1. More info here. 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. (ET) 

Saturday, February 4:

The Life Cycle of a Translation | Literary translation is a crucial way for stories and voices to cross geographical and cultural borders and reach diverse readerships. This event aims to demystify the process of publishing books in translation for debut authors and emerging translators — both from the perspective of selling international rights to your work and of embarking on a career in translation. Foreign rights agent Louisa Pritchard, bilingual author Laia Jufresa and literary scout Daniela Schlingmann provide an overview of the industry and the roles involved in bringing a book to the wider world. Their discussion will be chaired by NCW’s Head of Programmes & Creative Engagement, Holly Ainley. Virtual. Hosted by the National Centre for Writing. More info here. Register here. Starts at 10:00 a.m. (GMT)  

Days Come and Go: A Conversation with Hemley Boum | Join the Alliance Française de Seattle, in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company, for an online discussion with author Hemley Boum, who will discuss her latest book Days Come and Go, translated by Nchanji Njamnsi. Hemley and Nchanji will be in conversation with Nkiacha Atemnkeng, a writer and music enthusiast from Cameroon. Virtual. RSVP required by 12 PM on the day of the event. Hosted by the Alliance Française de Seattle, in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company. More info here. Register here. Starts at 12 p.m. (PT)

Monday, February 6:

In My Heart Launch: The Institute for African Studies, Institute for Research in African American Studies, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Africana Studies (Barnard), the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and Global Cultural Studies invite you to celebrate the launch of Sophonia Machabe Mofokeng’s In My Heart, newly translated by Nhlanhla Maake, with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Nhlanhla Maake. The event will take place in the Sulzberger Parlor at Barnard Hall, and dinner will be provided. In-person. Hosted by Barnard College. 5:00 - 8:30 p.m. (ET)

“Prose and Uncertainty: An Evening with Regina Dürig and Tess Lewis | Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation with the author Regina Dürig, currently writer-in-residence at Deutsches Haus at NYU, and the writer and translator Tess Lewis. Their conversation will focus on Regina Dürig’s creative practice; her wide-ranging writing (including experimental prose, theater and radio plays, and children’s and YA books); and how her role as a lecturer in creative writing influences her writing career and vice versa. In-person. Hosted by Deutsches Haus at NYU with the support of Pro Helvetia. More info here. RSVP here. 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (ET)  

Transnational Series: Mariana Enriquez and Megan McDowell | Join Community Bookstore, the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith, and Third Place Books for a virtual event with author Mariana Enriquez and translator Megan McDowell to discuss and celebrate the release of their new book Our Share of Night. Virtual. Hosted by Brookline Booksmith. More info here. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Tuesday, February 7: 

Nordic Book Club: The Reindeer Hunters by Lars Mytting | Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of our Nordic Book Club, now online! Each month we select a novel from some of the best Nordic literary voices. On February 7, we’ll be discussing The Reindeer Hunters by Lars Mytting, who discussed the novel with us in November in a virtual book talk streaming here. Virtual. Hosted by Scandinavia House. More info here. Register for the Zoom link here. Starts at 6:00 p.m. (ET) 

Thursday, February 9: 

Rachel Careau, Paul Eprile, and Judith Thurman on Colette | Chéri (1920) and its sequel, The End of Chéri (1926), are widely considered Colette’s finest achievements, in their brilliant, subtle and frank investigations of love and power. In sensuous, elegant prose, the two novels explore the evolving inner lives and the intimate relationship of an unlikely couple: Léa de Lonval, a middle-aged former courtesan, and Fred Peloux, twenty-five years her junior, known as Chéri. Rachel Careau’s and Paul Eprile’s exquisite new translations restore to these classic novels their taut, remarkably modern style—the essence of Colette’s genius. Join these two esteemed translators as they discuss Colette’s masterpieces and how they’ve each achieved such a tour-de-force. The conversation will be moderated by New Yorker staff writer Judith Thurman, the author of Secrets of The Flesh: A Life of Colette (Ballantine Books, 2000), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award. In-person. Hosted by Albertine Books. More info here. RSVP here. 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Transnational Literature Series: Maxim Osipov | Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with author Maxim Osipov to discuss and celebrate the release of Kilometer 101. In-person; if possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. More info here and here. Hosted by Brookline Booksmith. 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. (ET)  

Friday, February 10:

afikra Conversations: Writer & Literary Translator Yasmine Seale | Join us as we interview British-Syrian writer and literary translator Yasmine Seale on our Conversations series. Seale's reviews and essays on literature, art, myth, archaeology and film have appeared widely, including in Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Nation, frieze, The TLS, Apollo, 4Columns, and the London Review of Books blog.  Her poetry, visual art, and translations from Arabic and French have appeared in Poetry Review, Literary Hub, Asymptote, Rialto, Seedings, Partisan Hotel, Wasafiri, Two Lines, and anthologies with Comma and Saqi presses. She is the author, with Robin Moger, of Agitated Air: Poems after Ibn Arabi, out now with Tenement Press. Other work includes Aladdin: A New Translation (2018) and The Annotated Arabian Nights (2021), both out with W. W. Norton. She is the recipient of the 2020 Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Poetry and of a 2022 PEN/HEIM Translation Fund Grant.  In 2022-23 she will be a fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, based in Paris. Virtual. Hosted by afikra. More info here. 12:00 - 1:00 p.m (ET)

Us&Them: A Writer/Translator Reading Series | Us&Them gives literary translators with parallel careers as writers a place to showcase both sides of their work. For Winter 2023, Violette Allard, Peter Cole, Elina Alter, and Cristina Pérez Díaz will be reading. In-person. Hosted by Molasses Books. More info here. Starts at 8:00 p.m. (ET) 

Monday, February 13:

Black Feminism with Alice Hasters and Morgan Jerkins | Alice Hasters, German journalist, author, and podcaster, as well as a 2023 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles, joins bestselling author Morgan Jerkins for an intimate reading and discussion on Black feminism. Alice Haster’s autobiographical book Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, ''What White People Don't Want to Hear About Racism,'' published by Hanser Verlag, interrogates the structural racism which is present in German society and permeates every aspect of private life. The entrenchment of racism in social structures is often invisible to white subjects but has profound effects on BIPoC, who must contend with cultural intolerance, discrimination, and the pressure to assimilate on a daily basis. Racism does not merely belong to the right-wing fringes of society. This discussion will explore Black feminism in a transatlantic context, examining the lived experience of Black women in the USA and Europe, including the commonalities and differences, as well as constructing ways of overturning structures of racism and oppression. In-person. Hosted by Goethe Institut. More info here. RSVP here. Starts at 5:00 p.m. (ET)

Kilometer 101: Reading and Conversation with the author Maxim Osipov | Join Maxim Osipov at Bard College for a reading and conversation in support of his newest collection, Kilometer 101. In-person. Hosted by Bard College and presented by Bard College’s Russian/Eurasian Studies Program. More info here. 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. (ET) 

“The Diaries of Franz Kafka”: A Conversation Among Ross Benjamin, Vivian Liska, and Ulrich Baer | Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation among Ross Benjamin, Vivian Liska, and Ulrich Baer about Ross Benjamin’s new translation of The Diaries of Franz Kafka (The Schocken Kafka Library, January 2023). Ross Benjamin will read from his new essential translation of Kafka's complete, uncensored diaries, and reflect on the choices he made in realizing this translation. In-person. Hosted by Deutsches Haus at NYU. More info here. RSVP here. 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (ET)

Live on Fulton St.: José Olivarez | Greenlight is delighted to welcome the illustrious José Olivarez to our events stage for a lively evening of poetry and conversation celebrating his newest collection, Promises of Gold. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how “a promise made isn’t always a promise kept,” as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American Dream laying bare the ways in which “love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.” Whether readers enter this collection in English or Spanish, these extraordinary poems are sure to become beloved for their illuminations of life—and love. In-person. Hosted by Greenlight Bookstore. More info here. RSVP here. Starts at 7:30 p.m. (ET)

Wednesday, February 15:

Live on Fulton St.: Asja Bakić & Jennifer Zoble | We are thrilled to host the book launch of Sweetlust by Asja Bakić, translated by Jennifer Zoble. In Sweetlust, Asja Bakić deploys the speculative and weird to playfully interrogate conversations around artificial intelligence, gender fluidity, and environmental degradation. As she did in her acclaimed debut novel Mars, Bakić once again upends her characters’ convictions and identities and infuses each disorienting universe with sly humor and off-kilter eroticism. Both visceral and otherworldly, Sweetlust takes apart human desire and fragility, repeatedly framing pleasure as both inviting and perilous. Translator Jennifer Zoble joins Bakić for a conversation sure to interweave feminist critique and science fiction into an irreverent portrait of our past, present, and future. In-person. Hosted by Greenlight Bookstore. More info here. RSVP here. Starts at 7:30 p.m. (ET)

Thursday, February 16:

Les Fugitives: Absence | Tilted Axis Press presents Absence with author Lucie Paye and translator Natasha Lehrer. Virtual. Hosted by Borderless Book Club. More info here. Register for the Zoom link here. 8:00 - 9:30 p.m. (GMT)

Liberal Studies Translation Slam | In celebration of the new Minor in Translation Studies and NYU’s many talented authors and translators, Liberal Studies is holding a Translation Slam in partnership with the Department of Comparative Literature, the Master’s in Translation and Interpreting Program in the School of Professional Studies (SPS), and the PEN America Translation Committee. Co-hosted by Liberal Studies Professor Jennifer Zoble and SPS Professor Annelise Finnegan, the Slam will feature Spanish poetry and Arabic prose, and participants will include NYU professors, graduate and undergraduate students, and an alumna, all of whom work in/from either of those languages. Each translator will present their translation of a preselected text by one of the two participating authors, and the audience will have the opportunity to engage them all in conversation about their methods and choices, the particular challenges posed by these texts, and their broader work. Hybrid (in-person and virtual). Hosted by NYU Liberal Studies. The in-person event is open to members of the NYU community; register here. The virtual event is open to the public; register for the Zoom link here. 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. (ET)

Monday, February 20:

Litfest International Fiction (Zoom) Book Club with Jeremy Tiang | Our February 2023 choice is Cocoon by Zhang Yueran, translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (World Editions, paperback and eBook). We are delighted that Jeremy Tiang will join our discussion. Virtual. More info here. Hosted by Litfest. Starts at 6:30 p.m. (GMT)

Tuesday, February 21:

Meet the World: Rooted in Language | In this Meet the World event, four poets excavate their own work to examine the connections between them and the roots of language woven beneath the surface. Crispin Rodrigues, Mary Jean Chan, Nina Mingya Powles and Will Harris will share their experiences of writing from a multilingual perspective, both through their journey to writing poetry and the themes that permeate their work. Their discussion will highlight the struggle to navigate and thread fragments of language when the page becomes a metonym for a coherent national or personal identity. Virtual. Hosted by the National Centre for Writing and supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore. More info here. 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. (GMT) 

"Other Voices of Italy" (OVOI): a translation series of books published by Rutgers University Press | This roundtable presents a new series of books translated from Italian to English. The series is entitled “Other Voices of Italy: Italian and Transnational Texts in Translation” and proposes texts of any genre originally written in Italian. Its principal aim is to introduce new or past authors–who have until now been marginalized–to an English-speaking readership. The series will also highlight contemporary transnational authors, as well as writers who have never been translated or who are in need of a new/contemporary translation. The series further aims to increase the appreciation of translation as an art form that enhances the importance of cultural diversity. The speakers will include: editors Eilis Kierans, Alessandro Vettori, Sandra Waters; Rutgers University Press director Micah Kleit; Rutgers University Press assistant editor Christopher Rios-Sueverkruebbe; Prof. Gregory Pell of Hofstra University and Prof. Michelangelo La Luna of University of Rhode Island, translators of two OVOI books coming out later this year. In-person. Hosted by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura New York. More info here. 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Evil Flowers Book Talk with Gunnhild Øyehaug & Catherine Lacey | This February, join us for a book talk with award-winning Norwegian writer Gunnhild Øyehaug on her new book Evil Flowers. With moderator Catherine Lacey, she’ll discuss her collection of playfully surreal stories about love, death, and metamorphosis. In-person. Hosted by Scandinavia House. More info here. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET) 

Wednesday, February 22:

Three Languages: A Rail Reading curated by Leonard Schwartz | Leonard Schwartz curates The Brooklyn Rail's 123rd Poetry Reading featuring Fatemeh Shams, Tyrone Williams, and Zhang Er. Virtual. Hosted by The Brooklyn Rail. More info here. Starts at 1:00 p.m. (ET)

The Center for Fiction and Harper's Magazine Present the Art of the Short Story: Jai Chakrabarti, Hernan Diaz, and Gunnhild Øyehaug with Joanna Biggs | Acclaimed authors Jai Chakrabarti (A Play for the End of the World), Gunnhild Øyehaug (Knots), and Hernan Diaz (Trust) join our stage for a discussion of the ever-versatile and wildly divergent short story form and its craft. Their featured new works include Evil Flowers—Norwegian author Øyehaug’s playfully surreal, madcap collection about love, death, and metamorphosis—and A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness—Chakrabarti’s masterful collection exploring what it means to cultivate a family today, across borders, religions, and race. Joanna Biggs—senior editor at our presenting partner, Harper’s Magazine, and author of A Life of One’s Own—will moderate this insightful conversation. The Consulate General of Norway is sponsoring a reception before the event begins. Hybrid (in-person and virtual). Hosted by the Center for Fiction and Harper’s Magazine. More info here. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET)  

Thursday, February 28:

Meet the World: Writing Queer Lives | Where does the political end and the personal begin? What can we learn from those writing at the intersection? Join novelists Huw Lemmey (Bad Gays: A Homosexual History) and Daryl Qilin Yam (Shantih Shanith Shantih) for an intimate exploration of how queer identities have shaped their writing and informed their cultural perspectives.

Chaired by writer and filmmaker Juliet Jacques, this discussion bridges the personal and political to question how queer lives are presented in the social narrative and what can be gained from writing ourselves into it. Virtual. Part of the National Centre for Writing’s Meet the World series. Hosted by the National Centre for Writing and supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore. More info here. 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. (GMT) 

Freeway: LA Movie with Translator Lourdes Molina! | Deep Vellum invites you to a book launch event for Freeway: La Movie by Jorge Enrique Lage! This special event will feature a reading and conversation with the book’s translator Lourdes Molina and Shelby Vincent, associate director of the Translation Center at UTD and translator of Heavens on Earth. In-person. Hosted by Deep Vellum Books. More info here. 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. (ET)