Upcoming Translation Events (Virtual & In-Person): May 2026

Friday, May 1:

PEN America World Voices Festival: Translation Slam | The Translation Slam presents different translations of the same text side by side and invites the translators, the author, and the audience to join in a lively critical debate about how each version meets its creative challenges. A new text, previously untranslated into English, will be provided by Japanese author Keiichiro Hirano (Eclipse, tr. Brent de Chene and Charles De Wolf). Translating Hirano’s work from the Japanese will be translators Madison Shimoda '23 and Kyra Benjamin. Translations will vie for audience approval, and the event will end with a brief Q&A. In-person. Hosted by PEN America. More info here. 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. (ET)

PEN America World Voices Festival: Translating Trauma | Literary translators are the closest readers of a text. Yet, when a text bears witness to abuse, to war, to horror, what does that demand of the translator? In this discussion, hear from three acclaimed translators: Marguerite Feitlowitz (Information for Foreigners: Three Plays by Griselda Gambaro), Natasha Lehrer (A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot), and Sandra Smith (But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens), as they discuss the emotional toll of translating works that confront trauma and historical violence. Moderated by translator and author Michael Eskin, this conversation will explore both the personal costs to the translator and the necessity of bringing these works across languages. In-person. Hosted by PEN America. More info here. 7:30 p.m. - 8:45 p.m. (ET)

Saturday, May 2:

PEN America World Voices Festival: The Changing Role of the Translator | Translators are writers, interpreters, and cultural ambassadors, preserving the nuance and voice that gives literature life. What does the role of the literary translator look like today, in the face of an increasingly globalized world and the advent of AI translations that flatten cultural and linguistic nuance? This vital conversation will bring together acclaimed translators and authors Michael Eskin (The Emprise of Poetry: Durs Grünbein, America, Antisemitism and the Pursuit of Liberty), Annelise Finegan(The Enchanting Lives of Others by Can Xue), Tess Lewis (Nevermoreby Cécile Wajsbrot), and former translator for the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly Abdelgabar Mohieldin, with moderator Sandra Smith (Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky). In-person. Hosted by PEN America. More info here. 12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. (ET) 

Monday, May 4:

Crazy Genie reading and discussion with Liesl Schillinger and Simon Leser, NYC | NYU's La Maison Française hosts Liesl Schillinger for a reading and discussion of her translation, new from NYRB Classics, of Inès Cagnati's Crazy Genie—a devastating and lyrically rendered story of a young girl clinging fiercely to the damaged love of her mother, a taciturn farmworker cast out by her family and scorned by her village after giving birth out of wedlock. Schillinger will be joined in conversation by Simon Leser '20, fellow translator from French and PhD candidate in the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture at NYU. Hybrid (Virtual and In-person). More info here and here. Hosted by NYU Maison Française. 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (ET)

Tuesday, May 5:

The International Library: Shakespeare in Translation with Daniel Hahn and James Shapiro | Join us for a conversation with translator, writer, and editor Daniel Hahn on his new book, If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation.Through playful and illuminating exploration, Hahn reveals how the world’s most famous playwright is continually reinvented across languages, cultures, and centuries. Hahn invites us into the strange, exacting, and often joyful work of translation that makes the Bard readable from Bogotá to Borneo. Hybrid (Virtual and In-person). More info here. Hosted by The Center for Fiction. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Thursday, May 7:

Transnational Series: Niloufar Talebi and Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. | Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for a virtual event with Niloufar Talebi and Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. to discuss and honor their translations of Elegies of the Earth by Ahmad Shamlou and Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season by Forough Farrokhzad. Virtual. More info here. Hosted by Brookline Brooksmith. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Ugly Duckling Presse Spring Studio Party | Join the Ugly Duckling Presse studio for readings by five authors and translators from our May 2026 season. Readings by Alexis Almeida, Laura Cesarco Egin (translator of Miriam Reyes' Sardine), Stine An (translator of Yoo Heekyung's Winter Night Rabbit Worries), Sam Max, and Timothy Ashley Leo. In-person. Hosted by Ugly Duckling Presse. More info here. 7:30 p.m. - 11:30 p.m. (ET)

Translator Michael Hofmann presents The Hothouse and Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen, in conversation with Andrew Martin | Join Michael Hofmann for a discussion of two of his translations of Wolfgang Koeppen. Andrew Martin will join him in conversation. Hosted by Community Bookstore. In-person. More info here. 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (ET)

Saturday, May 9:

Salon d’Ayiti: A Living Tribute to René Depestre | Haiti Cultural Exchange and The Center for Fiction collaborate to celebrate the work and the living legacy of Haitian author René Depestre. The Center for Fiction will feature select readings and a panel discussion featuring the English translator of his work, Yale University professor Kaiama L. Glover, renowned author Edwidge Danticat, and special guests. Join Haiti Cultural Exchange after the program in their new space at 35 Lafayette Ave for a special post-salon gathering featuring live music. In-person. More info here and here. Co-hosted by Haiti Cultural Exchange and The Center for Fiction. 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. (ET)

Tuesday, May 12:

Best Literary Translations 2026 Launch l Join U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, and Daniel Simon for a lively Zoom conversation discussing their three newly launched books, with a focus on the urgency of literary translation. Guest edited by National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, Best Literary Translations 2026 features poetry and prose written in languages both widely spoken and critically endangered, brought into English. Virtual. Hosted by Deep Vellum. More info here. 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (ET)

Wednesday, May 13:

Luis Muñoz: One Moment with Idra Novey & Garth Greenwell | From “one of the most brilliant poets of his generation” (El Pais, Madrid) Spanish poet Luis Muñoz’s debut North American collection, translated by Idra Novey '07 and Garth Greenwell. Muñoz will be in conversation with Novey and Greenwell. Hybrid (Virtual and In-person). Hosted by Books Are Magic. More info here and here. 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (ET)

Wednesday, May 20:

Transcending Borders: The Art, Heart, and Business of Translation | Literary translators literally bring the whole world to our doorstep (and our nightstand). Part poets, part magicians, they take what an author has written in one language and conjure that world in another, making it possible for us to vividly and vicariously experience the lives of others whole continents and cultures away. Yet despite the pleasure and necessary bridge-building literary translation provides, it remains among the least recognized sectors in the publishing landscape. Only a small fraction of books published in the U.S. are works of translation, funding is increasingly difficult to find, and translators’ careers are in jeopardy as AI looms larger by the day—just to name a few of the challenges. So how can the literary community help create a healthier ecosystem for literary translation? Please join us for this dynamic panel with editors, translators, booksellers, and you—writers and readers—to map out next steps to keeping those stories from other lands by our bedside. The conversation, moderated by literary translator and PEN America Board Trustee Allison Markin Powell, will feature Corine Tachtiris, President of the American Literary Translators Association; Jack Kyono, Director of Marketing for McNally Jackson Books; poet and translator Soleil Davíd; and Juan Milà, Editorial Director of HarperVia. Virtual. Hosted by PEN America. More info here. Starts at 1:00 p.m. (ET)

Celebrating Pessoa: John Keene, Idra Novey, Vijay Seshadri, and Mónica de la Torre, with Patricio Ferrari | Join us for this polyvocal celebration of the enigmatic twentieth-century literary icon Fernando Pessoa, marking the publication of The Complete Works of Ricardo Reis (New Directions). Poets John Keene, Idra Novey '07, Mónica de la Torre, and Vijay Seshadri '88 will read, introduced by translator Patricio Ferrari. Each presenter will give voice to one of Pessoa’s heteronyms—the literary personas he channeled to write—with Ferrari sharing from the original Portuguese. RSVP required. Hybrid (Virtual and In-person). Hosted by the Poetry Society of America. More info here. Starts at 7:00 p.m. (ET)

Thursday, May 21:

Book Talk: Violent Phenomena, edited by Jeremy Tiang | A manifesto in 22 essays, Violent Phenomena breaks stale rules about who can and should translate, envisioning a future more reflective of the beautiful polyphony of literature in all languages. What would it take to unlearn centuries of colonial influence over the books we read? Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright, and International Booker Prize–longlisted literary translator. In conversation with Alexa Frank, an editor at HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins. In-person. Hosted by Yu & Me Books. More info here. 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (ET)

Thursday, May 28:

On Magicking a Mountain: World-Making in Literary Translation | Join us for the 2026 Ida Herz Lecture presented by Susan Bernofsky for the English Goethe Society Lectures series. Susan Bernofsky is Professor of Writing in the Faculty of Arts at Columbia University. She is the author of Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser (Yale, 2021), and has translated more than twenty books including three novels and four collections of short prose by the Swiss-German author Robert Walser, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Hesse’s Siddhartha. Her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel The End of Days (2014) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize, the Ungar Award for Literary Translation, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. She is currently working on a new translation of Thomas Mann’s monumental novel The Magic Mountain for W.W. Norton. Hybrid (Virtual and In-person). Hosted by the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the German Historical Institute, University of London. More info here. 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. (ET)

If you have an upcoming literary translation event and you'd like us to feature it on our website, please fill out this form.