Writer to Translator: Chilean Poet
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm PDT
Tamalpais Room | Brower Center | 2150 Allston Way | Berkeley, CA
Next to the writer/editor relationship, the writer/translator relationship is the most intimate and significant creative pairing there is. Transcending oceans and cultures, it can’t exist without trust, understanding, and a bond that is both intuitive and intellectual. Megan McDowell has translated into English many of the most important Latin American writers working today, and her translated works have four times been nominated for the International Booker Prize. She began translating the work of Chilean author Alejandro Zambra (“a writer of startling talent,” says The New York Times Book Review) when she was still a student. The most recent project in translation they worked on together is Zambra’s fifth novel Chilean Poet, which Sheila Heti called “a very funny, warm, and beautiful novel.“ McDowell’s translation was praised for its fealty to Zambra’s sensibility and singular prose style: “a remarkable achievement,” says PopMatters. Come see how these two literary alchemists achieve a unique creative symbiosis.
Alejandro Zambra is the author of Multiple Choice; My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; and three other works of fiction: Chilean Poet, Ways of Going Home, and The Private Lives of Trees. The recipient of numerous literary prizes and a New York Public Library Cullman Center fellowship, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Granta, and Harper’s Magazine, among others. He lives in Mexico City.
Megan McDowell has translated work by many of the most important contemporary Latin American writers, including Samanta Schweblin, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enriquez, Carlos Fonseca, and Lina Meruane. Her translations have won the National Book Award, the English PEN award for Writing in Translation, the Premio Valle-Inclán, the Shirley Jackson Prize, and two O. Henry Prizes, and have been short- or long-listed four times for the International Booker Prize, and shortlisted once for the Kirkus Prize. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Granta, among others. She is from Richmond, KY and lives in Santiago, Chile.