May 21, 2024
Online
Write the World 2024: A Palette of Languages
A Palette of Languages: Translating into or from Non-Native Tongues
Many translators have been told that one can only translate into one’s native language(s). In this panel, we’ll hear from translators who have contested this assertion, bravely ferrying literature from cultures and tongues they grew up with or later built deep connections with.
What are the trajectories they’ve taken from wanting to work with these languages to actually doing it? What are the challenges and stereotypes faced by translators working across a palette of languages, including ones that aren’t their first? How and when do “accented translations” land as “bad or good” English, and why even label them? How can translators who work with non-native tongues foster a sense of community, and how can the translation world celebrate such remarkable contributions?
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Moderator
Barbara Ofosu-Somuah is a writer, translator, and 2nd year Ph.D. student in Romance Studies at Duke University. In her work, she thinks with the archives of Black Italian women’s cultural production to examine the literary, political, and social articulations of Blackness and Black identity in Italy.
Panelists
Isabella Corletto translates from Spanish and Italian. She has translated Amalia Andrade’s Things You Think About When You Bite Your Nails (Penguin Books, 2020) and has work published in the Cincinnati Review, the Arkansas International, and elsewhere. She received the 2023 PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature. Nguyễn An Lý lives in Hochiminh City. Her translations into Vietnamese include works by Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, J. L. Borges, Richard Flanagan, and the poetry in The Lord of the Rings. Chinatown by Thuận, her debut translation into English, won the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award in Prose. She co-founded and co-edits the independent online journal Zzz Review. Sonakshi Srivastava is a writing tutor at Ashoka University. She is the Translations Editor at Usawa Literary Review, and a South Asia Speaks translation fellow. She translates from Hindi and Khari-boli, and her works have appeared in Connect Asap, Alipore Post, and Usawa Literary Review, amongst others.