Translator
Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an award-winning translator of Najwan Darwish’s Nothing More to Lose (New York Review of Books), Dunya Mikhail’s The Iraqi Nights (New Directions), and Rabee Jaber’s Confessions and The Mehlis Report (New Directions). He has received residencies from the Lannan Foundation and the Banff International Center for the Arts, as well as a Fulbright research fellowship. He has lived an itinerant life across the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. and also works as a freelance editor and translator of French and German texts into English. He practices various forms of meditation and is currently completing his PhD in comparative literature at UC Berkeley.
Translator
Chris Clarke was raised in Western Canada, and currently lives in Paris, France. His translations include work by Raymond Queneau (New Directions) and Pierre Mac Orlan (Wakefield Press), among others. He was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant in 2016 for his translation of Marcel Schwob’s Imaginary Lives (Wakefield Press, March 2018). His translation of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s In the Café of Lost Youth (NYRB Classics) was shortlisted for the 2016 French-American Foundation Translation Prize. Chris is a PhD candidate in French at the Graduate Center (CUNY) in New York.
Translator
Heather Green's translation of Tristan Tzara's Noontimes Won was published in 2018 by Octopus Books, and her translation of Tzara's Guide to the Heart Rail was released in 2017 in a limited-run art edition by Goodmorning Menagerie. She is the author of two chapbooks, No Omen and The Match Array, on LATR Press and Dancing Girl Press, respectively. Her poems have appeared in AGNI online, Barrow Street, Denver Quarterly, Phoebe, the New Yorker, the Bennington Review, and many other journals. Her translations of Tzara's work have appeared in Asymptote, Open Letters Monthly, Poetry International, and several anthologies. She holds an MA in literature from University of Nebraska and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University and currently teaches at George Mason University.
Translator
Elisabeth Jaquette is a translator from Arabic, instructor at Hunter College, and executive director of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Among her book-length translations are The Apartment in Bab el-Louk by Donia Maher, illustrated by Ganzeer and Ahmed Nady, and The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz. Elisabeth is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Grant and an English PEN Translates Award. Her work has been shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize, and longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award.
Translator
Megan McDowell has translated many contemporary authors from Latin America and Spain, including Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enriquez, Gonzalo Torné, Lina Meruane, Diego Zuñiga, and Carlos Fonseca. Her translations have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review, Harper's, McSweeney's, Words Without Borders, and Vice, among others.
Translator
Anna Deeny Morales is a translator and literary critic. Recent translations include Floating Lanterns (Shearsman Books, 2015) by Mercedes Roffé and Sky Below: Selected Works by Raúl Zurita. Other translations of Zurita’s works include Purgatory (University of California Press, 2009) and Dreams for Kurosawa (arrow as aarow, 2012). She is an adjunct professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.
Translator
Sawako Nakayasu writes and translates poetry, and also occasionally creates performances and short films. Her most recent books are The Ants (Les Figues, 2014) and a translation of The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika (Canarium Books, forthcoming, 2014). Other books include Texture Notes, Hurry Home Honey, and Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-translations, & Originals. She has received fellowships from the NEA and PEN, and her own work has been translated into Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese.
Translator
Vivek Narayanan holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Stanford University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. He was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Narayanan has taught history, anthropology, and creative writing in many places, including the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, and the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. His books include Universal Beach (Harbour Line Press, 2006; In Girum Books, 2011) and Life and Times of Mr S (Harper Collins India, 2012). His essays, criticism, and poetry have appeared widely in Agni, Granta, The Village Voice, Harvard Review, Caravan, and elsewhere.
Translator
Marcia Lynx Qualey is the founding editor of ArabLit, an online magazine and resource that won the 2017 “Literary Translation Initiative” award at the London Book Fair. She writes, edits, and translates for a variety of newspapers and magazines, teaches writing in Morocco, and also works with a number of Arabic literature projects, including Kitab Sawti and the Library of Arabic Literature.
Translator
Lara Vergnaud is a translator of literary and scholarly works from the French. She currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Translator
Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s first novel, City Sister Silver (2000), was selected for the 2006 guide 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. His translation of Petra Hůlová’s first novel, All This Belongs to Me (2009), received the 2010 National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association. In addition to translating, Zucker also has experience in editing and communications and served as cochair of the Translation Committee at PEN America from 2014 to 2016. His next book-length translation will come out in May 2017: Angel Station, a novel by Jáchym Topol (Dalkey Archive Press).
September 27, 2018
Day of Translation with the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center
George Mason University | 4400 University Drive | Fairfax, VA
Join us for our second annual “Day of Translation” with the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center. All panels and events will take place on the George Mason University campus in Fairfax, VA.
Writers and translators appearing include
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Chris Clarke, Elisabeth Jaquette, Megan McDowell, Anna Morales, Sawako Nakayasu, Vivek Narayanan, Marcia Lynx Qualey, Heather Green, Lara Vergnaud, and Alex Zucker.
Panel topics include
“Contemporary Arabic Literature,” “The Politics and Advocacy of Translation,” “Why Translation?” and “Experimental Translation.” Megan McDowell will give the keynote address.
All events are free and open to the public.
Contact:
Translator
Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an award-winning translator of Najwan Darwish’s Nothing More to Lose (New York Review of Books), Dunya Mikhail’s The Iraqi Nights (New Directions), and Rabee Jaber’s Confessions and The Mehlis Report (New Directions). He has received residencies from the Lannan Foundation and the Banff International Center for the Arts, as well as a Fulbright research fellowship. He has lived an itinerant life across the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. and also works as a freelance editor and translator of French and German texts into English. He practices various forms of meditation and is currently completing his PhD in comparative literature at UC Berkeley.
Translator
Chris Clarke was raised in Western Canada, and currently lives in Paris, France. His translations include work by Raymond Queneau (New Directions) and Pierre Mac Orlan (Wakefield Press), among others. He was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant in 2016 for his translation of Marcel Schwob’s Imaginary Lives (Wakefield Press, March 2018). His translation of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s In the Café of Lost Youth (NYRB Classics) was shortlisted for the 2016 French-American Foundation Translation Prize. Chris is a PhD candidate in French at the Graduate Center (CUNY) in New York.
Translator
Heather Green's translation of Tristan Tzara's Noontimes Won was published in 2018 by Octopus Books, and her translation of Tzara's Guide to the Heart Rail was released in 2017 in a limited-run art edition by Goodmorning Menagerie. She is the author of two chapbooks, No Omen and The Match Array, on LATR Press and Dancing Girl Press, respectively. Her poems have appeared in AGNI online, Barrow Street, Denver Quarterly, Phoebe, the New Yorker, the Bennington Review, and many other journals. Her translations of Tzara's work have appeared in Asymptote, Open Letters Monthly, Poetry International, and several anthologies. She holds an MA in literature from University of Nebraska and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University and currently teaches at George Mason University.
Translator
Elisabeth Jaquette is a translator from Arabic, instructor at Hunter College, and executive director of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Among her book-length translations are The Apartment in Bab el-Louk by Donia Maher, illustrated by Ganzeer and Ahmed Nady, and The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz. Elisabeth is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Grant and an English PEN Translates Award. Her work has been shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize, and longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award.
Translator
Megan McDowell has translated many contemporary authors from Latin America and Spain, including Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enriquez, Gonzalo Torné, Lina Meruane, Diego Zuñiga, and Carlos Fonseca. Her translations have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review, Harper's, McSweeney's, Words Without Borders, and Vice, among others.
Translator
Anna Deeny Morales is a translator and literary critic. Recent translations include Floating Lanterns (Shearsman Books, 2015) by Mercedes Roffé and Sky Below: Selected Works by Raúl Zurita. Other translations of Zurita’s works include Purgatory (University of California Press, 2009) and Dreams for Kurosawa (arrow as aarow, 2012). She is an adjunct professor in the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.
Translator
Sawako Nakayasu writes and translates poetry, and also occasionally creates performances and short films. Her most recent books are The Ants (Les Figues, 2014) and a translation of The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika (Canarium Books, forthcoming, 2014). Other books include Texture Notes, Hurry Home Honey, and Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-translations, & Originals. She has received fellowships from the NEA and PEN, and her own work has been translated into Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese.
Translator
Vivek Narayanan holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Stanford University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. He was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Narayanan has taught history, anthropology, and creative writing in many places, including the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, and the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. His books include Universal Beach (Harbour Line Press, 2006; In Girum Books, 2011) and Life and Times of Mr S (Harper Collins India, 2012). His essays, criticism, and poetry have appeared widely in Agni, Granta, The Village Voice, Harvard Review, Caravan, and elsewhere.
Translator
Marcia Lynx Qualey is the founding editor of ArabLit, an online magazine and resource that won the 2017 “Literary Translation Initiative” award at the London Book Fair. She writes, edits, and translates for a variety of newspapers and magazines, teaches writing in Morocco, and also works with a number of Arabic literature projects, including Kitab Sawti and the Library of Arabic Literature.
Translator
Lara Vergnaud is a translator of literary and scholarly works from the French. She currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Translator
Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s first novel, City Sister Silver (2000), was selected for the 2006 guide 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. His translation of Petra Hůlová’s first novel, All This Belongs to Me (2009), received the 2010 National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association. In addition to translating, Zucker also has experience in editing and communications and served as cochair of the Translation Committee at PEN America from 2014 to 2016. His next book-length translation will come out in May 2017: Angel Station, a novel by Jáchym Topol (Dalkey Archive Press).