2021 Virtual Events Recap
In case you missed any of our fantastic events this year, here are the highlights of our best virtual conversations with authors and translators of 2021.
It’s been quite the year for virtual literary events! We’re grateful to have collaborated with our favorite indie bookstores to bring some of the best international writers and translators to a screen near you. In case you missed something, we’ve collected all of the links to the event recordings together in one post for easy viewing.
Thanks for tuning in! We’ll be back in 2022 with more innovative and provocative conversations about international literature in translation. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest on virtual and in-person events coming soon.
In February, Two Lines Press joined Community Bookstore to celebrate Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island(opens in a new tab), a collection of stories that traverse the fickle, often terrifying terrain between madness and freedom. Spanish author Elvira Navarro and translator Christina MacSweeney discussed the collection with writer Sarah Rose Etter.
In March, Point Reyes Books hosted a celebration of Elemental: Earth Stories(opens in a new tab), the second installment of the Calico Series from Two Lines Press, with translators Jessica Cohen, Allison Charette, and Brian Bergstrom. Moderated by Cristina Rodriguez.
In April, Mirene Arsanios, Sawako Nakayasu, and Mónica de la Torre joined in a roundtable discussion on Don Mee Choi’s essay Translation is a Mode = Translation is an Anti-neocolonial Mode and its relation to their own approaches to expanded translation practice and complex linguistic-cultural identity. The roundtable was moderated by Esther Allen and co-presented by Ugly Duckling Presse, CUNY Center for the Humanities, and the Center for the Art of Translation.
Chilean author Bruno Lloret and translator Ellen Jones joined writer Kathryn Scanlan in May to discuss Nancy(opens in a new tab), Lloret’s powerful coming-of-age story that uses typography and illustration to capture the narrator’s waning sense of consciousness.
In June, CAT joined Point Reyes Books to present award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky in a celebration of Clairvoyant of the Small(opens in a new tab), her long-awaited biography of the modernist writer Robert Walser. Susan was in in conversation with Kate Zambreno, author of Drifts, a novel in which Walser hovers in the background.
Two Lines Press and Brookline Booksmith’s Transnational Literary Series hosted a celebration of Mohamed Kheir’s Slipping(opens in a new tab), the Egyptian author’s first book to be brought into English by Robin Moger. Mohamed and Robin joined Egyptian writer Yasmine El Rashidi to discuss this innovative novel that searches for meaning within the haze of trauma while portraying the overlooked miracles of everyday life.
We returned after a break for the summer with a celebration of Mauritian writer Carl de Souza’s Kaya Days(opens in a new tab), translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, co-hosted by Community Bookstore and Two Lines Press in September. Carl and Jeffrey were in conversation with Jamaican poet, essayist, and novelist Kei Miller.
Books are Magic hosted a celebration of Cuíer: Queer Brazil(opens in a new tab), the latest installment of the Calico Series from Two Lines Press. Contributors Bruna Dantas Lobato, Johnny Lorenz, and Natalia Affonso joined us for readings and a discussion, moderated by Sara Balabanlilar.
Carl de Souza presented Kaya Days(opens in a new tab), translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, at this year’s Litquake with Anita Felicelli.
Inspired by the October publication of Empty Wardrobes(opens in a new tab)—Maria Judite de Carvalho’s cutting 1966 novel, translated from Portuguese for the first time by Margaret Jull Costa, this panel event focused on three women writers widely overlooked in their time but given new life and recognition in translation. Margaret Jull Costa, Jenny McPhee, and Suzanne Jill Levine discussed their translations of Maria Judite de Carvalho, Natalia Ginzburg, and Silvina Ocampo with writer Kate Zambreno. Co-presented by the Transnational Literature Series and the Center for the Art of Translation.
In November, translator Isabel Fargo Cole discussed her translation of Wolfgang Hilbig’s The Interim(opens in a new tab), a monumental novel from one of the greatest chroniclers of postwar Germany, with Hari Kunzru. Moderated by Dustin Illingworth and co-presented with Third Place Books, Brookline Booksmith’s Transnational Literature Series, and Two Lines Press.
To cap off 2021, we hosted Rachel Kushner in conversation with Isabel Fargo Cole about Wolfgang Hilbig’s The Interim(opens in a new tab), lust, God, statelessness, addiction, capitalism, and the writer’s place in “a century of lies.” Co-presented with Community Bookstore and Two Lines Press.
