Panel: Translation Matters

PANEL: TRANSLATION MATTERS

Wednesday, March 19, 5:00 p.m.
Humboldt Park Fieldhouse
1400 N. Sacramento (North of Division)
FREE
Produced in partnership with Story Week and presented in special collaboration with Chicago Park District.

During this panel, celebrated authors and translators will discuss the crucial role literature plays in increasing global understanding, the need to teach literature in translation, and other topics.

Featuring
Cristina Garcia, author of King of Cuba
Kolin Jordan, translator for 7Vientos
Achy Obejas, author of Ruins
Valeria Luiselli, author of Faces in the Crowd and Sidewalks

Host
Susan Harris, editorial director of Words Without Borders

About the Panel:

Cristina García is the author of six novels: King of Cuba (Scribner, 2013); The Lady Matador’s Hotel (Scribner, 2010); A Handbook to Luck(Knopf, 2007); Monkey Hunting (Knopf, 2003); The Agüero Sisters (Knopf, 1997), winner of the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize; and Dreaming in Cuban(Knopf, 1992), finalist for the National Book Award. García has edited two anthologies, Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature (2006) and Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature (2003). She is also the author of three works for young readers: Dreams of Significant Girls (2011), a young adult novel set in a Swiss boarding school in the 1970s; The Dog Who Loved the Moon, illustrated by Sebastia Serra (Atheneum, 2008); and I Wanna Be Your Shoebox (Simon and Schuster, 2008). A collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death (Akashic Books), was published in 2010. Photo by Isabelle Selby.

 

In 2010 Kolin Jordan co-founded 7Vientos (7V), an independent publishing company in Chicago. Since then 7V has published three books with a fourth slated for release in March 2014. Two of those books (Saturnalia, 2013 and Flowers/The Illustrated Biography of Mishima, 2014) were translated from Spanish to English by Jordan, himself. He has been a lifelong speaker and student of the Spanish language and graduated from DePaul with a BA in Spanish in 2005. Photo by Ariana Drule.

 

 Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. Her novels and essays have been translated into many languages, and her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times,Granta, and McSweeney’s. Some of her recent projects include a ballet libretto for the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, performed by the New York City Ballet in Lincoln Center in 2010; a pedestrian sound installation for the Serpentine Gallery in London; and a novella in installments for workers in a juice factory in Mexico. She lives in New York City. Photo by Alfredo Pelcastre.

 

Achy Obejas was born in Cuba and moved to the United States when she was six years old. Her newest work, an anthology of recent immigrant fiction called Immigrant Voices: 21st Century Stories, co-edited with Megan Bayles, will be released this month by the Great Books Foundation. Her most recent books are Ruins, a novel, and This is What Happened in Our Other Life, a bestselling poetry chapbook. She’s the translator of Junot Diaz’s The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This is How You Lose Her (both from English to Spanish), among many others. She was part of the Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize-winning team in 2001, won several Peter Lisagor journalism honors, two Lambda Literary Awards, and an NEA poetry fellowship. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, Vogue, Playboy, Los Angeles Times, MS, and others, including In These Times, where she writes a monthly column. She is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College in Oakland, California. www.achyobejas.com Photo by Kaloian.

 

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words Without Borders (www.wordswithoutborders.org) and the coeditor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry.

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