Writing Co-Lab

When reading international literature, we’re also reading the histories and cultures from a rich array of languages from across the world. Literary translation is an art that brings these books into cross-cultural conversations, creating not just visibility, but ideally, representation. What are the pathways like, breaking into the world of literary translation? How do we go from finding a book that speaks to us in another language, and eventually publishing the work and interacting with English-speaking audiences? How do we incorporate the concept of translation into our own creative works? 

In class, we’ll do weekly readings that include essays about translations and excerpts of books translated from various languages, based on each week’s theme. 

Starting from Week 2, we’ll workshop short translation practices or translation-in-progress from each student. This is a non-language-specific workshop and there is no limit with the genres to submit (poetry, hybrid works, graphic novels, and picture books are all very welcomed). Every translator will get to workshop once and have a 30-minute one-on-one meeting with me. If you are just starting a project, or already have a project in-progress, this is the workshop for you.

Note for previous students: If you have taken a translation workshop with me before, you might want to consider a new translation workshop I’m listing with Writing Co-Lab, which will bring you different themes and new materials to deepen your practices!

Week 1 On Literary Translation & International Literature

Week 2 Translating Voices & Consciousness

Week 3 Queering Translation & Translating Gender and Feminism

Week 4 Translating the Weird: On Strange and Surreal Narratives

Week 5 Experimentation in Translation- Hybrid, Poetry, and Graphic Novels

Week 6 Building Translation Communities