The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) Receives Major Investment from the State of California
We have wonderful news to share with you, the people who know the Center for the Art of Translation’s (CAT’s) work best. We recently learned the State of California has recognized CAT with a $2.8 million investment. The largest state funding CAT has received to date, this commitment comes through the state’s 2026/27 budget (AB/SB 113), and it’s part of a broader package that includes funding for dozens of arts and culture nonprofits statewide. At a time when literature remains the least-funded artistic discipline in the US, this is a meaningful vote of confidence in the community you have helped us build for literary translation in the Bay Area and beyond. And it comes as we’re hard at work to open a public literary hub in downtown San Francisco in 2027.
Thanks to this incredible support from the State of California, we will be able to serve our community and the larger literary ecosystem in new and better ways. We are eager to honor the trust that has been put in us and our mission by connecting even more people across languages and gathering around stories from all over the world.
CAT was founded in San Francisco in 2000, and over the past decade alone we’ve spotlighted more than 100 languages in translation across our publishing program and translation-focused events. Our educational program, Poetry Inside Out, has brought poetry in translation from more than 25 languages into grade 3–12 classrooms for over 20,000 students and teachers, while over 32,000 attendees have joined our translation-focused events in the Bay Area and beyond. Two Lines Press, our book publishing program, has published over 70 nationally distributed fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction titles in translation from over 30 languages, including Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, and Swahili, among others. Two Lines titles include five National Book Award finalists and winners of the PEN Translation Prize and Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize, among many additional accolades.
This clear recognition from the State of California illuminates the essential role that arts organizations and cultural centers play in a city’s vibrancy. For 26 years we’ve brought the voices and ideas of exciting new writers from around the world to audiences in California and into our public schools—as well as to readers everywhere—and we look forward to seeing that vision fully realized in the years ahead!
There’s so much we’re looking forward to this fall. Our public programs include a new translator-curated conversation series, “Translator to Translator,” and nine “Words Around the World” events we’re presenting with Litquake at partner venues across the Bay Area. Two Lines Press(opens in a new tab) releases five literary translation titles, including Splendor: Trans Poets and the paperback edition of National Book Award finalist The Queen of Swords by Jazmina Barrera, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. And Poetry Inside Out holds its next online teacher training October 6–8 for grade 3–12 educators.
Looking ahead, our new literary hub will open to the public in 2027 in a historic three-story, 7,400-square-foot building in San Francisco—steps from the Transamerica Pyramid, at the intersection of Chinatown, North Beach, and the Embarcadero.
We’d love to see you at one of our upcoming events, and if you’re curious about our new literary and cultural anchor in San Francisco, you can learn more at catranslation.org/sf-literary-hub/. If you have questions about our programs, contact Alyson Sinclair, CAT’s Communications Director, at alyson@catranslation.org(opens in a new tab). To read more about what this year’s state budget means for arts and culture organizations across California, visit CA Arts Advocates(opens in a new tab).
Thank you translators, writers, educators, and readers for helping build a cross-cultural community. This milestone, our vibrant programs, and the years of work it took to get us where we are today would not have been possible without you.
