Remembering Carol Maier

She espoused collaborative translation with Suzanne Jill Levine and later with Noël Valis and Roberta Hunt, and developed theoretical approaches based on “cross-cultural,” “woman-centered,” and “translating as a body” practice, which influenced many translators and scholars of translation. She translated key works by two exiled republican Spanish writers, María Zambrano and Rosa Chacel, and the poetry of Cuban exile poet Octavio Armand. She greatly contributed to make literary translation a key element in the prestigious Translation Studies program at Kent State University.

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Moderator

Françoise Massardier-Kenney taught translation and collaborated with Carol Maier at Kent State University. Her works include Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Abolitionist Writing; and with Carol Maier, Literature in Translation. Her translations include de Duras’ Ourika, Sand’s Valvèdre, Antoine Berman’s Toward a Translation Criticism, and Pierre Guyotat’s Formation.

Presenters

Octavio Armand was born in Guantánamo, Cuba in 1946. He has lived in exile in New York, where he founded the poetry magazine escandalar, and now lives in Caracas. He translates Mark Strand. His own poetry is characterized by its ludic nature and openness to a poetic tradition that ranges from Berceo and Villon to Appollinaire and Paz. His English translator was Carol Maier. Peter Bush is an award-winning translator who works from Spanish, Catalan, French, and Portuguese. Among his recent translations are Juan Goytisolo’s Níjar, Country, Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Tyrant Banderas, Teresa Solana’s The Sound of One Hand Killing, Josep Pla’s The Grey Notebook, and Balzac’s The Lily of the Valley. Suzanne Jill Levine is an award-winning translator, critic, and scholar. Her latest translation is Guadalupe Nettel’s Bezoar and Other Unsettling Stories (2020). She and Carol Maier met at an ALTA conference in the 1980s and their work on Cuban writer Severo Sarduy led to collaborations they described as companionship.