Passports to the World: The Center at Litquake

Olivia E. Sears is a translator of Italian poetry and founder of the Center for the Art of Translation, where she edited the journal Two Lines for over a decade. Her translations of contemporary poet Mariangela Gualtieri have recently appeared in Arkansas International, Circumference, The Common, and Copper Nickel, among others. She is currently completing a manuscript of Gualtieri’s poetry in English, When I Wasn’t Dying.

Katherine Silver has translated and published more than thirty books, mostly of Latin American literature, and her work has been honored by critical acclaim, awards, prizes, and other recognitions. Her most recent and forthcoming translations include works by María Sonia Cristoff, Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Juan Carlos Onetti, Julio Cortázar, Daniel Sada, Horacio Castellanos Moya, César Aira, and Pedro Lemebel. She was recently translator-in-residence at the University of Iowa, and is the former director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.

Dick Cluster is a writer and translator based in Oakland, California. His original work includes three novels and two books of history, most recently The History of Havana (with Rafael Hernández). Other Cuban writers he has translated include Aida Bahr, Pedro de Jesús, and Abel Prieto. His translation of Gabriela Alemán’s Poso Wells (2018, City Lights) was selected by the American Booksellers’ Association for the Summer/Fall 2018 “Indies Introduce” list of ten best author-debut books, and for their August 2018 “Next Great Reads.”