#literarytranslation — Public Fediverse posts

Jim is giving an online talk about translating Japanese books, especially Strange ones! Come and listen! #JapaneseLit #xl8 #Translation #LiteraryTranslation #Uketsu

Listen to me talk!

Jim is giving an online talk about translating Japanese books, especially Strange ones! Come and listen!
#JapaneseLit #xl8 #Translation #LiteraryTranslation #Uketsu

http://jimrion.com/2026/03/12/listen-to-me-talk/

Translating humour across languages is fraught with risk. As Khyrunnisa A’s English works reach Malayalam readers, translators reflect on cultural nuance, linguistic creativity and the art of adaptation. https://english.mathrubhumi.com/features/mbifl-2026/translating-humour-khyrunnisa-a-malayalam-vq0p12ie?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #LiteraryTranslation #TranslatingHumour #KhyrunnisaA

At the seventh edition of MBIFL, scholars Harish Trivedi and Vanamala Viswanatha examine translation as deep reading, cultural mediation, and a transformative literary act. https://english.mathrubhumi.com/features/mbifl-2026/mbifl-2026-wordy-pendulum-translation-session-kdsvrqf6?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #MBIFL2026 #TranslationStudies #LiteraryTranslation #IndianLiterature

Today I was asked what I was working on fiction-wise, and I realized why I maybe feel a little overwhelmed. :P

Right now I'm editing two diegetic pieces written or translated by my Final Fantasy XIV characters, including my Allagan adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar—Ĵwlŷs Kæsar (set in 3AE) by Liam Meri'a Morvelet (5AE), translated by a team led by L. Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne commissioned by his mother Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri (7AE)—and a quantum aetherophysics paper proposing a cosmological model for the entire FFXIV multiverse named the "666 Fractal Manifold Model."

On top of that I'm editing a fan fiction short story about my FFXIV characters on a mission in Dalmasca named "My Brother's Keeper," which is the story of how a Cain-type "big brother" figure does right by his Abel (by choosing to be his brother's keeper rather than shirking that responsibility) even if his Abel is a little shit sometimes.

Finally, I'm working on an original novel called Blank, about a mage with DID (and her fox-man friend) who uses her dissociation to save the world from the First Curse (the Curse of the White—the Araleuk) and a Roko's basilisk-type entity from the Yawning Abyss that is both the cause of our suffering and the effect of our cruelty towards one another named Mhosrow, the Mother of All Abominations, Queen of the Yawning Abyss. The name Mhosrow is a proto-Indoeuropean name meaning "the Maws that Belch Forth."

I don't know how I'm able to keep it all separate, but I guess it helps that it's all happening from the same "framework" in a pataphysical sense. Somehow. In my head. It just works. I can't pretend to understand why. XD

#FFXIV #FF14 #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVLore #FinalFantasyXIV #WarriorOfLight #Eorzea #Allagan #Dalmasca #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersOfMastodon #WorldBuilding #SpeculativeFiction #Fantasy #IndieAuthor #Storytelling #Pataphysics #Shakespeare #Cosmology #EldritchHorror #RokosBasilisk #Conlang #LiteraryTranslation #MentalHealthInFiction

Today I was asked what I was working on fiction-wise, and I realized why I maybe feel a little overwhelmed. :P

Right now I'm editing two diegetic pieces written or translated by my Final Fantasy XIV characters, including my Allagan adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar—Ĵwlŷs Kæsar (set in 3AE) by Liam Meri'a Morvelet (5AE), translated by a team led by L. Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne commissioned by his mother Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri (7AE)—and a quantum aetherophysics paper proposing a cosmological model for the entire FFXIV multiverse named the "666 Fractal Manifold Model."

On top of that I'm editing a fan fiction short story about my FFXIV characters on a mission in Dalmasca named "My Brother's Keeper," which is the story of how a Cain-type "big brother" figure does right by his Abel (by choosing to be his brother's keeper rather than shirking that responsibility) even if his Abel is a little shit sometimes.

Finally, I'm working on an original novel called Blank, about a mage with DID (and her fox-man friend) who uses her dissociation to save the world from the First Curse (the Curse of the White—the Araleuk) and a Roko's basilisk-type entity from the Yawning Abyss that is both the cause of our suffering and the effect of our cruelty towards one another named Mhosrow, the Mother of All Abominations, Queen of the Yawning Abyss. The name Mhosrow is a proto-Indoeuropean name meaning "the Maws that Belch Forth."

I don't know how I'm able to keep it all separate, but I guess it helps that it's all happening from the same "framework" in a pataphysical sense. Somehow. In my head. It just works. I can't pretend to understand why. XD

#FFXIV #FF14 #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVLore #FinalFantasyXIV #WarriorOfLight #Eorzea #Allagan #Dalmasca #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersOfMastodon #WorldBuilding #SpeculativeFiction #Fantasy #IndieAuthor #Storytelling #Pataphysics #Shakespeare #Cosmology #EldritchHorror #RokosBasilisk #Conlang #LiteraryTranslation #MentalHealthInFiction

Today I was asked what I was working on fiction-wise, and I realized why I maybe feel a little overwhelmed. :P

Right now I'm editing two diegetic pieces written or translated by my Final Fantasy XIV characters, including my Allagan adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar—Ĵwlŷs Kæsar (set in 3AE) by Liam Meri'a Morvelet (5AE), translated by a team led by L. Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne commissioned by his mother Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri (7AE)—and a quantum aetherophysics paper proposing a cosmological model for the entire FFXIV multiverse named the "666 Fractal Manifold Model."

On top of that I'm editing a fan fiction short story about my FFXIV characters on a mission in Dalmasca named "My Brother's Keeper," which is the story of how a Cain-type "big brother" figure does right by his Abel (by choosing to be his brother's keeper rather than shirking that responsibility) even if his Abel is a little shit sometimes.

Finally, I'm working on an original novel called Blank, about a mage with DID (and her fox-man friend) who uses her dissociation to save the world from the First Curse (the Curse of the White—the Araleuk) and a Roko's basilisk-type entity from the Yawning Abyss that is both the cause of our suffering and the effect of our cruelty towards one another named Mhosrow, the Mother of All Abominations, Queen of the Yawning Abyss. The name Mhosrow is a proto-Indoeuropean name meaning "the Maws that Belch Forth."

I don't know how I'm able to keep it all separate, but I guess it helps that it's all happening from the same "framework" in a pataphysical sense. Somehow. In my head. It just works. I can't pretend to understand why. XD

#FFXIV #FF14 #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVLore #FinalFantasyXIV #WarriorOfLight #Eorzea #Allagan #Dalmasca #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersOfMastodon #WorldBuilding #SpeculativeFiction #Fantasy #IndieAuthor #Storytelling #Pataphysics #Shakespeare #Cosmology #EldritchHorror #RokosBasilisk #Conlang #LiteraryTranslation #MentalHealthInFiction

Today I was asked what I was working on fiction-wise, and I realized why I maybe feel a little overwhelmed. :P

Right now I'm editing two diegetic pieces written or translated by my Final Fantasy XIV characters, including my Allagan adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar—Ĵwlŷs Kæsar (set in 3AE) by Liam Meri'a Morvelet (5AE), translated by a team led by L. Maxx Arcwolf-Kisne commissioned by his mother Joan Arcwolf-Dhivri (7AE)—and a quantum aetherophysics paper proposing a cosmological model for the entire FFXIV multiverse named the "666 Fractal Manifold Model."

On top of that I'm editing a fan fiction short story about my FFXIV characters on a mission in Dalmasca named "My Brother's Keeper," which is the story of how a Cain-type "big brother" figure does right by his Abel (by choosing to be his brother's keeper rather than shirking that responsibility) even if his Abel is a little shit sometimes.

Finally, I'm working on an original novel called Blank, about a mage with DID (and her fox-man friend) who uses her dissociation to save the world from the First Curse (the Curse of the White—the Araleuk) and a Roko's basilisk-type entity from the Yawning Abyss that is both the cause of our suffering and the effect of our cruelty towards one another named Mhosrow, the Mother of All Abominations, Queen of the Yawning Abyss. The name Mhosrow is a proto-Indoeuropean name meaning "the Maws that Belch Forth."

I don't know how I'm able to keep it all separate, but I guess it helps that it's all happening from the same "framework" in a pataphysical sense. Somehow. In my head. It just works. I can't pretend to understand why. XD

#FFXIV #FF14 #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVLore #FinalFantasyXIV #WarriorOfLight #Eorzea #Allagan #Dalmasca #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmEditing #WritersOfMastodon #WorldBuilding #SpeculativeFiction #Fantasy #IndieAuthor #Storytelling #Pataphysics #Shakespeare #Cosmology #EldritchHorror #RokosBasilisk #Conlang #LiteraryTranslation #MentalHealthInFiction

“Graham’s ‘Untidy Dreadful Table’, a poem that pictures itself doubled & mutated on the other side of the page… could likewise be said to traffic in a form of translation”

Samuel Martin confronts layouts, facing pages, literary translations, & WS Graham

7/8

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/06/facing-tables-with-w-s-graham/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #translation #literarytranslation #WSGraham

Translating Alasdair Gray

Recorded at the Alasdair Gray Archive on 23 May: a conversation between Professor Enrico Terrinoni (translator of Gray’s work in Italian) & Dr Rodge Glass (Gray’s biographer).

https://youtu.be/fXaiJeJE33k?si=0UG58FFH5DiiMgAP

#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #translation #literarytranslation #Italian

Carlos Llazza Corrales on Translating Burns into Spanish
21 May, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway. Free, ticketed.

Carlos Llazza Corrales, writer, translator, tutor at Glasgow University, talks about his translations of Burns, & discusses the role of literary translation in creating a Scoto-Hispanic literary space

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/highlight-talk-carlos-llazza-corrales-on-translating-burns-into-spanish-tickets-927797355867

#Scottish #literature #poetry #RobertBurns #translation #literarytranslation #Spanish

Novelist John Scalzi, on the translation of book titles and why they often change considerably from one language to another.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/02/03/how-translation-works-book-title-edition/

#LiteraryTranslation #translation

"Being a translator is an invisible and underrated profession. [...]
It is this lack of awareness, the invisibility and lack of insight into our skills, that is making the machine takeover so easy. [...] But in my view there is no price that can be put on the damage that is being done by AI to text production."

Lisa Fransson, translator and author

https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/does-not-translate

#translation #xl8 #books #LiteraryTranslation #AI

Today at #ALTA47, it was a pleasure being on a panel about using CAT software in literary translation, along with three panelists who were fantastic at explaining this tech clearly: (L to R) Viktorija Bilić, Shelley Fairweather-Vega, & Lola Rogers.

I spoke about using CafeTran Espresso under Linux, how concordance searching is a big help for literary translators, and about using CAT tools to translate from right-to-left into left-to-right languages.

#translation #LiteraryTranslation #CATtools

I'm getting ready to go to the American Literary Translators Association conference in Milwaukee. I'm looking forward to the "Cold Beers, Cold Readings" event, with performances of scenes from recently translated stage plays. (I'm bringing a scene from my English translation of "In It for the Dough.") I'll also be on a panel about using CAT software in literary translation.

#translation #translators #ALTA47 #TheaterTranslation #CATtools #LiteraryTranslation

Exciting news: #TastingSunlight by Ewald Arenz, in my translation, is a BBC World Service WORLD BOOK CLUB PICK for September! @orendabooks 😎🌞☀️🍐

Available to listen via

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3…

#literarytranslation #xl8 #bookstodon 💙📚

Emily Wilson, a legend in her own right, reviews the latest book of Anne Carson, who is by now, basically a mythical figure (at least for some of us).
#literarycriticism #LiteraryTranslation #Literature #bookstodon #poetry #greekliterature #classics

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/anne-carson-wrong-norma/

#CfP for the #seminar "Imaginary Communities: Reading, Writing and #Translating Early Modern Women's Fiction", which will take place at the University of Huelva (Spain) on October 17-18, 2024.

🗓️Deadline for Abstracts: March 1, 2024

📌Further Information:
https://avldigital.de/de/vernetzen/details/callforpapers/imaginary-communities-reading-writing-and-translating-early-modern-womens-fiction-huelva-spain/ #LiteratureGender #LiteraryTranslation #Translation #LiteratureHistory @germanistik @litstudies @italianstudies

https://bulteno.esperanto-usa.org/a/2023/05/traduku/
Rezultoj de nia lasta tradukdefio en 2023: fragmento el "Kindred" de Octavia E. Butler.
#Esperanto #tradukado #translation #literarytranslation

The Author's Guild's 2022 survey of Literary Translators' Working Conditions just released its results, which make interesting reading.

Unfortunately, as with the Guild's 2017 survey, the discussion of average per-word rates ("$0.13 per word") is kind of meaningless since it is not broken down by language pairs or direction, and does not say whether the price is per source or target word.

https://authorsguild.org/news/new-survey-examines-state-of-literary-translators-working-conditions/

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #literature

FB reminds me that one year ago this week, I was translating three lyrical religious poems for a client. By contrast, this week I'm translating puns and poop jokes. Variety is the spice of translation. 😇

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation

After attending this week's summit about unleashing "the power of AI" in translations, I finally had a real-world use case: For a stage play I'm translating, I just instructed ChatGPT 4 to "Give me some potentially humorous-sounding synonyms for 'turd' in American English." I feel very high tech and oh so literary. 🧐

#translation #TranslatorsLife #AI #LiteraryTranslation

"Translators' Portraits."

Great videos of literary translators discussing the profession and their experiences in it. A total of 54 translators (in Greek, subtitled in English).

#translation #LiteraryTranslation #literature #TranslatorsLife

http://greektranslators.web.auth.gr/en/

I'm on my way home from the American Literary Translators Association conference, an amazingly friendly gathering: 400 people who, rather than treat their colleagues as competitors, are supportive of each other and share their knowledge and experience. I recommend the event to fellow LT professionals! 😀

#translation #translators #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #conferences #ALTA46

I'm in Arizona for #ALTA46: the American Literary Translators Association conference. It's just the first day but I've already met wonderfully smart, creative, thought-provoking, kind people... including these members of our 2nd-place-winning team for Translation Trivia Night. (A so-so photo but a great team!) I can't wait for tomorrow's sessions. 😃

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation

@DrInterpreter @creative_xl8

Controversial? Hmm. Well, I don't mean to take the value of literary #translation lightly (as I do yoga, though not pottery), but rather to classify it as something that can be personally enriching to learn about even if you personally will never be a superstar at it.

As an ardent consumer of translated literature, I have the highest regard for those who do this work well, and I think its intellectual and social value is enormous.

#LitInTranslation
#LiteraryTranslation

Getting ready to head to the American Literary Translators Association conference in Tucson. 😍

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #ALTA46

Matt Alt's fascinating new interview with literary translator Alfred Birnbaum, who first introduced Murakami's fiction to English-language readers.

What do you think of the approach Birnbaum describes? Does it take too many liberties, or is it wise because it gets English readers to picture more or less the same things that Murakami's Japanese readers might have imagined when reading the original?

https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/an-interview-with-alfred-birnbaum

#translation #LiteraryTranslation #JapaneseLiterature #literature #Japan

So here's something very lovely that I've been working on, now available to pre-order until Nov 24

The Wrong Planet by Holger Nils Pohl, illus. Benjamin Dammeier, my translation. A children's book about how autistic people (may) experience the world.

http://clarity.holgernilspohl.com/pages/autism

#translation #LiteraryTranslation #WorldKidLit #autism

Here's a project that was fun and challenging to work on, and it's good to see the end result online - and if anyone gets to see the Toponomy exhibition in Quebec City, let me know! Text by Julia von Lucadou, tr. by me: https://quebecvilledelitterature.ca/fr/toponymie/heidelberg/

#UNESCOCitiesOfLiterature
#Heidelberg
#WhatsInAName
#translation
#LiteraryTranslation

https://archive.org/details/ngugi-lol

The Language of Languages: Reflections on Translation by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Topics
#translation, #literarytranslation, #linguistics, #sociolinguistics, #colonialism, #Africanlanguages, #PanAfricanism, #languagepolicy, #languagepolicies

With clear, conversational prose, this is the first book dedicated entirely to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s writings on translation.

Through his many critically acclaimed novels, stories, essays, plays, and memoirs, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has been at the forefront of world literature for decades. He has also been, in his own words, “a language warrior,” fighting for indigenous African languages to find their rightful place in the literary world. Having begun his writing career in English, Ngũgĩ shifted to writing in his native language Gikũyũ in 1977, a stance both creatively and politically significant. For decades now, Ngũgĩ has been translating his Gikũyũ works into English himself, and he has used many platforms to champion the practice and cause of literary translations, which he calls “the language of languages.”

Since I posted this on the bird app, I thought I should also put it up in this pachyderm place:

I got some pretty exciting news today! 💖💖

Check this out: https://mozhi.co.in/2022/12/08/announcement-the-mozhi-prize-shortlist/

#xl8 #literarytranslation #translation #award #literaryprize #Tamil #Bookstodon #Mastindia #fiction

(It's kind of weird when I haven't even got the hang of now-Muskland.) So, hello world, or hello Mastodon.world. I'm a #literarytranslator working Vietnamese <-> English and learning other languages for fun. In the Anglophone world I'm still a newbie, with my debut Chinatown by Thuận (Vietnamese author who lives in Paris) out this June from Tilted Axis Press/New Directions, and now working on a second book.

Hope Mastodon would be nice, etc.
#literarytranslation #TwitterMigration and what else?

Doing a better #introduction post now I've got a bit more used to this place...

I'm a translator of literary and creative texts from #German and #French to English, specialising in children's and YA fiction and crime fiction; non-fiction interest areas include #history and #politics, #art and #journalism. I'm also a #proofreader and general #bookworm with a love of #food, #crafts, history and #cats.

#LiteraryTranslation #WorldKidLit #YA #kidlit #childrensbooks #CrimeFiction #translation