Translating the Future - A Manifesto For Our Time on Tuesday 9 June 2020
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 2020-06-09

Hear the "Call for Action" from the 2020 Manifesto on Translation and listen to the translators who have been working to update the manifesto drafted for the original 1970 conference, "The World of Translation,” to address questions such as: How do we recognize the progress that has been made over the past 50 years? What are our priorities in 2020? What is our vision for literary translation in the future?

https://howlround.com/happenings/manifesto-our-time

Elizabeth Lowe translates Brazilian and Lusophone writers, including Clarice Lispector, Rubem Fonseca, Nélida Piñon, Teolinda Gersão, and Antônio Lobo Antunes. She was recognized by the Brazilian Academy of Letters for her re-translation of the iconic work on the Brazilian backlands by Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões (1903;Backlands: The Canudos Campaign, 2010). She is a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Translation Fellow for 2020-2021, and she won a Fulbright Scholar award for teaching and research in Brazil in 2021. Lowe is a faculty member in the New York University M.S. in Translation and Interpreting program.

Matthew Harrington is a translator from Spanish and PhD candidate in the Department of English at Temple University. His dissertation, “Translating Revolutionary Politics in the 19th Century,” studies the role of translation in the emergence of nineteenth-century political concepts as they traveled in various documents and literary genres through the Americas and broader Atlantic world. A 2019 Bread Loaf Translators Conference participant, he is currently translating Spanish Civil War journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales’ historical short stories, and has a short essay about this project forthcoming this summer for the Words Without Borders Daily.

Larissa Kyzer is a writer and Icelandic literary translator. She was Princeton University’s fall 2019 Translator in Residence and is a member of Ós, an Iceland-based international literary collective, and the American Literary Translators Association. Her translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s A Fist or a Heart was awarded the American Scandinavian Foundation’s 2019 translation prize. She is co-chair of PEN America’s Translation Committee and runs the bi-monthly, NYC-based Women+ in Translation reading series Jill! https://www.facebook.com/JillReadingNYC

About this Conference and Conversation Series

Translating the Future launched with weekly hour-long online conversations with renowned translators throughout the late spring and summer and will culminate in late September with several large-scale programs, including a symposium among Olga Tokarczuk's translators into languages including English, Japanese, Hindi, and more.

The conference, co-sponsored by PEN America, the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center CUNY, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, with additional support from the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, commemorates and carries forward PEN's 1970 World of Translation conference, convened by Gregory Rabassa and Robert Payne, and featuring Muriel Rukeyser, Irving Howe, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and many others. It billed itself as "the first international literary translation conference in the United States" and had a major impact on US literary culture.

The conversations are hosted by Esther Allen & Allison Markin Powell.

About HowlRound TV

HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world's performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and to develop our knowledge commons collectively. Participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us.