Chosen Tongue

Eleonora Balsano
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Books
  • Updated Weekly

A podcast about translingual writers and their journeys.

  1. Apr 12

    Ariel Dorfman: I had to fall in love with my doubleness

    Chosen Tongue

    1h 1m

  2. Apr 5

    Hoangmai Pham: Piecing the self together

    Hoangmai (Mai) Pham is a Vietnamese American physician, memoirist, and former Chief Innovation Officer for Medicare and Medicaid. At six, she fled Saigon with her family at the end of the war and arrived in America with a new language to learn and a life to rebuild. Her memoir, Bridge from Saigon, shortlisted for the International Beverly Prize for Literature, is out now. In this episode, we talk about mastering English while losing the emotional vocabulary of your first language, about imposter syndrome and dissociation, and about what it means to spend a lifetime being the bridge between worlds.

    34 min

  3. Mar 29

    Vanessa Fabiano: Bringing my other languages into English

    Vanessa Fabiano grew up in Switzerland, the daughter of immigrants, speaking six languages before she ever thought of herself as a writer. She studied East Asian Studies at Columbia, first traveled to China in 1994, and was back there working during the SARS outbreak in 2002. She's built a parallel life in brand strategy and communications, co-founded a literary nonprofit, and curated an international literary festival. She now lives in Copenhagen. Her debut short story collection, Chinese on the Beach, was published by Ybernia in 2025. In this episode, we talk about what it means to write across languages, why English became her creative home, and what happens to identity when you've never quite belonged to just one place. We also get into Vanessa's next project, which takes her somewhere new: the world of Soviet-era ballet.

    29 min

  4. Mar 22

    Ova Ceren: I gained freedom and lost some confidence

    Ova Ceren writes bittersweet tales of heartbreak and magic, often inspired by Turkish and Ottoman folklore. Blessed (or perhaps cursed) with a mathematical brain, she earned a degree in Computer Science and a master's that led her into a career in IT, taking her from Türkiye to Britain. After years of wrestling with algorithms in corporate jungles, she finally eloped with a debut novel instead. Ova now lives in Cambridge, UK, with her husband, son, and a spirited flock of runner ducks. She is also the creator of the popular Instagram and TikTok channels @excusemyreading. In this conversation, Ova reflects on writing in English as an immigrant writer, and on the delicate act of translating a culture, and a self, for a foreign audience. We talk about language and belonging, about choosing imagination over certainty, and about what it means to build a literary voice far from home.

    29 min

  5. Mar 15

    Sophie Lewis: On translating Angst by Hélène Cixous

    Sophie Lewis is a London-born translator and editor. Working from French and Portuguese, she has translated books by Marcel Aymé, Josephine Baker, Hélène Cixous, Annie Ernaux, Violette Leduc, Noémi Lefebvre, Nastassja Martin, Françoise Sagan, Leïla Slimani, Stendhal and Jules Verne; also Victor Heringer, Patrícia Melo, Sheyla Smanioto and Micheliny Verunschk, among others. For six years she was principal editor at publisher And Other Stories, and her most recent in-house position was as managing editor at The Folio Society. With Gitanjali Patel, she co-founded Shadow Heroes translation workshops. Lewis's translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. In 2022, she won the French-American Foundation's prize for non-fiction translation. In this episode, Sophie speaks about translating Hélène Cixous's Angst, and about the intellectual, ethical, and stylistic decisions that shape a translator's work. We talk about voice and fidelity, humour and idiom, and about what it means to write in English while carrying another language inside the sentence.

    38 min

  6. Mar 8

    Costanza Casati: I still struggle with imposter syndrome

    Costanza Casati was born in Texas and raised in Northern Italy. She holds an MA in Writing from the University of Warwick and has worked as a screenwriter and journalist. Her debut novel, Clytemnestra, sold into more than twenty territories worldwide and won the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, while her second novel, Babylonia, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and the winner of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. In this conversation, Costanza reflects on writing in her second language, English, the imposter syndrome that has accompanied her success, and the visceral encounter with Clytemnestra that first compelled her to write. We speak about language, identity, translation, and the persistence required to claim one's voice across tongues.

    30 min

  7. Mar 1

    Gonzalo C. Garcia: English gave me the distance

    Gonzalo Ceron Garcia was born in Santiago and spent his first years in Chile's Colchagua Valley region, before moving to Switzerland and eventually to the University of Kent, where he studied for a PhD under Scarlett Thomas. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Warwick. His debut novel, We Are The End, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2017. His second novel, Telenovela, was published in November 2025.  In this episode, Gonzalo reflects on writing in English after leaving Chile, and on the distance a new language can create — from place, from memory, and from inherited histories. We talk about family, politics, and storytelling, and about the freedom that comes from approaching language as something fluid, playful, and alive.

    33 min

  8. Feb 22

    Ledia Xhoga: The pleasure of a many-flavoured language

    Ledia Xhoga (pronounced Joga) is a fiction writer and playwright. She was born and raised in Tirana, Albania and currently lives in Brooklyn. Her debut novel Misinterpretation was published by Tin House Books (US & Canada) and Daunt Books (UK). Misinterpretation was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, the recipient of a New York City Book Award, Finalist for Center For Fiction First Novel Prize and a Best of 2024 Book by Debutiful. Her work has been published in Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Brooklyn Rail, Large Hearted Boy, Intrepid Times, Hobart and other journals. In this episode, Ledia reflects on writing in English as an Albanian author, and on the uncertainties and freedoms that come with choosing a second language. We talk about interpretation as both a literary practice and a way of living, about insecurity and voice, and about how the idea of home shifts over time.

    25 min
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About

A podcast about translingual writers and their journeys.

Information

  • Creator
    Eleonora Balsano
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    53
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2023
  • Show Website
    Chosen Tongue