Translation Traffic: Engaging the World Beyond the Text

Published on the Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation blog

December 2, 2018.

Iowa City is already nostalgic for the 28 resident writers who finished this year’s International Writing Program’s Fall Residency about a month ago. However, before their departure, the Iowa Translation Workshop arranged a roundtable discussion with the writers who are also practicing translators. The event took place on Wednesday, October 24, at Philips Hall, University of Iowa. Focusing on the theme of language traffic, the discussion mainly revolved around two main issues: selecting a text to translate, and the role of translation in the respective cultures of the panelists.
Read the full article on Exchanges

Why Sri Lankan Literature Matters?

“Even within South Asia, Sri Lanka occupies a minority state in terms of both its geography and population. From a translator’s perspective, I couldn’t help but notice that the rate of Sri Lankan contemporary literature that is being circulated (in translation or in the original language/s) and read around the world is comparably lower than the national literatures of many other countries. It is also studied and anthologized much less often than other national literatures of the world. We talk about the infamous “3% factor” of annual literary translation publications in the US, but we’ve hardly ever seen or heard about a translation from the Sinhalese making it to the languages that contribute to that percentage, right”

-Interview with Project Plume