Reading the World: A Panel on Literary Translation (10/14/2026)

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 02:00:00 GMT

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.***

Mother Tongue in Other Tongues: Life in Translation, a Public talk by translator Aron Aji (11/10/2026)

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Aron Aji cannot recall a time when he was not translating. Growing up in Turkey among Ladino, Hebrew, and French used at home and then, from elementary school on, in Turkish—and studying in English later—he learned to move between languages long before he began translating Turkish literature. In this talk, Aji asks what that lifelong experience brings to the page. What happens when English meets a Turkish text on its own terms? How might the text stretch English’s rhythms and expressive habits, rather than simply fit into them? Aji calls his approach “acoustic translation”: an act of close listening that draws on memory, sound, and the senses to recreate the experience of a work in another language. Translation, in this account, is a way of hearing a text—and of finding one’s way back to the languages of one’s life.

About the speaker: Aron Aji has published ten book-length translations of modern and contemporary Turkish literature, alongside numerous translations of poetry and prose. His translation of Bilge Karasu’s The Garden of Departed Cats won the National Translation Award, and his co-translation with Selin Gökçesu of Ebru Ojen’s Lojman won the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize. His translations also include works by Murathan Mungan (with David Gramling) and Ferit Edgü. His most recent translation of Edgu’s landmark novel, A Season in Hakkari, will be published in 2027. For many years, Aji directed the University of Iowa’s Translation Programs; he is a past president (2016-2019) of the American Literary Translators Association.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the website here.

***Please note this event is not organized or sponsored by NOTIS. For any questions, please contact the event organizers.***

Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society upcoming events

Reading the World: A Panel on Literary Translation (10/14/2026)