Prizes Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann, wins the International Booker Prize 2024. In preparation for ALTA46, the American Literary Translators Association is currently accepting proposals for panels and roundtables. Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu and American translator Sean Cotter have won the €100,000 Dublin literary award for the novel Solenoid. The EBRD announces finalists for its 2024 translated literature award. Applications are now open for the Art Omi Translation Lab 2024. Lucy Coleman and Madeline Jones were recently named the recipients of the sevent ..read more

This school year, the Center for the Art of Translation honors the recipients of the second annual Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship, a year-long program designed to support teachers as they pursue curricular research, build skills in creative language instruction, and learn how to inspire collaborative discussions of poetry in translation in the classroom.  Teaching Fellows join a vibrant network of students, teachers, poets, translators, and academics committed to open-ended dialogue about language and literature, working together to develop culturally responsive, integrat ..read more

Woodworm is a story that originated from the women in your family. Can you talk more about your inspiration for the novel? Layla Martinez: Initially, Woodworm was a short story. It was summer, I was spending a few days at my grandmother’s house, which is the house that appears in the novel, and I was in my bedroom, about to go to sleep, when the wardrobe door opened. In that wardrobe are not everyday clothes, but special clothes for the family, like my grandmother’s wedding dress, the habit my uncle wears during Holy Week or the dress my grandmother wants to be buried in. T ..read more

April showers bring May flowers—right? This month, we’re picking the blooms of our labors with exciting news from all our programs at CAT, and with some greater updates in the world of translation. Visit our website Two Lines Press is proud to present Woodworm by Layla Martínez, translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott—an Indie Next pick, a Polygon Must-Read Book for Spring 2024, and your next favorite novel. Out May 14, Martínez’s English-language debut is full of saints, praying mantises, witches, intergenerational curses, and a whole mess of raging ..read more

Spring has sprung, and among the colors of the season are the beautiful terracotta and blue that color our office these days. The Center for the Art of Translation has new opportunities, new events, and our monthly round-up of translation news. Pictured above is the cover of our April release-—Off-White, the new novel from National Book Award finalist Astrid Roemer, translated by Lucy Scott and David McKay. Available now! Preorder Off-White Read the NYT profile of Astrid Roemer April is also National Poetry Month! In the spirit of our recent Message of Solidarity, we want to u ..read more

Prizes The shortlist to the 2024 International Booker Prize was announced in early April. Heartfelt congratulations to Marcia Lynx Qualey for receiving the 2024 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. Celebrating all the winners of the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship—many of whom are working in and with literary translation. The Governor’s General Literary Awards honors works in translation by Canadian translators. The Luso-American Development Foundation has opened up applications for their FLAD Translation Program, aiming to translate Portuguese authors in the ..read more

CAT’s educational program Poetry Inside Out has mentored individual teachers across the U.S. as they introduce multilingual literature into their classrooms. For over ten years, hundreds of teachers have offered students access to an engaging cross-cultural literary arts program that values cultural and language diversity. Every teacher who goes through a workshop has access to a multilingual library of poems that include English-language glossaries to accompany the original text. As our program has grown, so has our community. We have teachers from around the country who say hi to us at the a ..read more

This school year, the Center for the Art of Translation honors the recipients of the second annual Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship, a year-long program designed to support teachers as they pursue curricular research, build skills in creative language instruction, and learn how to inspire collaborative discussions of poetry in translation in the classroom.  Teaching Fellows join a vibrant network of students, teachers, poets, translators, and academics committed to open-ended dialogue about language and literature, working together to develop culturally responsive, integrat ..read more

Tell us a little about your project. What drew you to the work you’re currently translating—themes, style, the author’s insight? On the opening page of Katama Mkangi’s Walenisi, the protagonist is sentenced to death for no discernible reason and shot into outer space inside a rocket; he then battles some allegorical asteroids before miraculously piloting himself to safety on a distant planet that happens to be a socialist utopia. I first read this novel in an undergraduate Swahili class, and to call it a mind-blowing experience would be an understatement. While I was naturally drawn to Mk ..read more

Prizes The Bait AlGhasham DarArab Translation Prize is now accepting submissions for its 2025 prize, which honors Arabic literature and its translation to English.  The prize has two submission opportunities—a Translator’s Category and an Author’s Category. The National Book Critics Circle announced the 2023 winners of their annual awards, offered in six different categories. There were three winners in translation: Kim Hyesoon and translator Don Mee Choi won the poetry category for Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions), Tahir Hazmat Izgil and translator Joshua L. Freeman won the John Le ..read more