ALTA45 Roundtable Advocating for Translators The 2022 PEN Translation Manifesto in Action

The newly completed 2022 PEN Translation Manifesto, which is now ready for use by members of the U.S. translation community and beyond, will serve as a jumping-off point from which to launch our discussion. An update of the 1969 PEN Translation Manifesto, the 2022 document renews and recalibrates calls for change in publishing, academia, and now the digital sphere and articulates what we want to see shift in the future, particularly in terms of gender and racial equity.

Format: We will circulate the 2022 Manifesto to participants in advance and ask them to come prepared to discuss how the calls to action can be implemented in various spheres of interest, from the perspective of their own professional work.

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Organizers

Elizabeth Lowe translates Luso-Afro-Brazilian literature into English. She is on the faculty of the MS in Translation and Interpreting at New York University, and the co-author of Translation and the Rise of Inter-American Literature (with Earl E. Fitz). She was the FLAD Endowed Chair of Portuguese Studies at UMass Dartmouth in Spring 2022.

Bonnie Chau is the author of the short story collection All Roads Lead to Blood. She earned her MFA in fiction and literary translation from Columbia University, and she currently teaches creative writing and translation at Columbia and Fordham. She is an editor for three publications, and serves as a member of ALTA’s board and equity advocates committee.

Matthew C. Harrington is a scholar and a translator from Spanish and will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College this fall. He was a 2019 Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference participant, a 2021 LARB Fellow, and is a co-author of the PEN Translation Manifesto. He holds a PhD in English from Temple University with a focus in Translation Studies and literatures of the Atlantic world.