Translators Note Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation

For our spring episode of Translators Note, Claire talks with Mary Jo Bang about her experiences with co-translation, translating Dante, and being translated herself. 

 

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

 

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz; other music in the episode is by Tim Kahn.

After a long delay, please enjoy this newest episode of Translators Note, in which the wonderful John Keene speak about translation, our conversation moving from his own work to broader ideas about the art and the field. 

 

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

 

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz; other music in the episode is by Tim Kahn.

Where do we find the intersections between translation practices and frameworks of language justice? How can the metaphors we use to talk about translation move toward language justice? In this episode, I spoke to Jen/Eleana Hofer about these questions and others, and about their work with language justice and as a translator and interpreter.

 

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

 

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Here are links to some of the projects and resources mentioned during the episode!

Antena Aire’s Language Justice Resource Page

Antena Aire Pamphlets

Roberto Tijerina & Language Justice

Jen's translation of Virginia Lucas in Shenandoah Literary Review (including the footnote read during the episode and the poem to which it belongs)

 

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz; other music in the episode is by Tim Kahn.

Only a fraction of works published in translation are plays, and only a fraction of plays produced are translations, but theater is a wonderful genre that comes with its own unique set of translation challenges. Moving from late 19th- and early 20th-century American Yiddish theater to contemporary Japanese theater, Claire Breger-Belsky talks to Nahma Sandrow, Yiddish theater translator and historian, and Aya Ogawa, a playwright, director, performer, and translator from the Japanese, about translating drama.

 

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

 

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz; other music in the episode is by Tim Kahn.

People commonly picture translators, like writers, working alone with their texts. Presenting a different view, this episode explores community and the ways translators support each other and work together. Claire Breger-Belsky gets an inside look from American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) program manager and Spanish/Swedish translator Kelsi Vanada, and Julia Conrad catches up with Italian/German translator, publishing consultant, and member of multiple translation collectives Alta Price. You can find ALTA’s list of translation collectives here.

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz; other music in the episode is by Tim Kahn.

How does translation grapple with place and transport us through language? Chinese translator Jennifer Feeley joins Abby Ryder-Huth to talk about bringing a sense of Hong Kong and Cantonese speech to her translation of "Patient," a short story by Wong Yi published in 2020 by Asymptote. Wong Yi herself reads from the original, which you can read here. Later, Julia Conrad is in conversation with Persian translator Poupeh Missaghi, whose novel trans(re)lating house one (Coffee House Press, 2020) translates the city of Tehran in the wake of the city's 2009 election. They talk about how language and identity manifest in Poupeh's work both in and out of Persian, and the expansive forms translation can take. 

Listen here, or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts! 

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To be further transported-- You can catch Wong Yi's radio show, Book Review (開卷樂) on RTHK, or as a podcast here. Jennifer Feeley's translation of Wong Yi's Cantonese-language chamber opera, Women Like Us, is also streaming as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival through the 31st of May. Grab your rice noodle rolls with sweet sauce and enjoy from wherever you are. 

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Our theme music is by Nate Repasz, and this episode also features music by Ketsa, Daniel Birch, and Metre.