Reading the World: A Panel on Literary Translation
This event will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 14th, in the Worthington Conference Center.
Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by Oly Fed
In this evening presentation, three award-winning translators will discuss the pleasures and challenges of translating texts into English. How does a translator convey a work of literature from one language and culture into another? What is the process that brings us voices and stories from around the world? Each panelist works from a different language and specializes in a different genre—fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The panel will be followed by audience Q&A and a book-signing, with books by all of the translators available for purchase on site.
Elizabeth DeNoma
Dr. Elizabeth DeNoma is a writer, editor, translator and literary agent at the boutique international agency of Sebes, Bisseling, and Kleuver. Before founding DeNoma Literary Services she worked at the University of Washington (Seattle), the University of Wisconsin (Madison), Microsoft, Amazon Publishing (acquiring and editing global literature for translation into English), and the Ross Yoon Agency (now part of WME), where she managed foreign rights.
Some of her recent standout translations are:
- Snö: A History by Sverker Sörlin
- The award-winning The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf
- The Answer Is No by Frederick Backman
Elizabeth regularly leads panels and conducts interviews at events for both industry professionals and the general public in forums such as the London Book Fair, Town Hall in Seattle, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the National Nordic Museum. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. in literary studies from the University of Washington.
Shelley Fairweather-Vega
Shelley Fairweather-Vega is a professional translator of Russian and Uzbek in Seattle, Washington. She translates fiction, poetry, screenplays, games, journalism and scholarly writing, with a special focus on the contemporary literature of Central Asia. As a translator, she is most interested in the intersection of culture and politics in modern history. Shelley holds degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington. She is a past administrator of the American Translators Association’s Literary Division and is a founding member of the Northwest Literary Translators. Her translations have been published in Words Without Borders, Brooklyn Rail, World Literature Today, and more, and by presses including Tilted Axis and Yale University Press. In 2005, her translation of We Computers by Hamid Ismailov was a finalist for the National Book Award in Translated Literature. See her published projects and work in progress at fairvega.com/translation.
Zhang Er
Zhang Er, poet, translator, and opera librettist, born in Beijing, is the author of seven collections of poetry in Chinese, most recently Sea Volts and Bullets Twirl 《海跳起，子弹婉转》. Her selected poems have appeared in English translation in three collections from Zephyr Press: First Mountain, So Translating Rivers and Cities and Verses on Bird. She co-edited and participated in the translation of Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Talisman House) and The Art of Women in Contemporary China: Both Sides Now, (Cambridge Scholars). She translated American poet John Ashbery into Chinese (John Ashbery Selection, 平铺直叙的多样化, People’s Literature Publishing House). Zhang Er has also written opera libretti in English for American composers, most recently Tacoma Method (Tacoma Opera, 2023). She teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
***Please note that this event is not organized or sponsored by NOTIS. For any questions, please contact the organizers.***
