EXEMPLARY HUMANS by Juliana Leite, translated from the Portuguese by @zoeperry.bsky.social, is out today from @twolinespress.com. It's a rare bird of a novel, and I sing its praises in this review published in @commonmag.bsky.social www.thecommononline.org/book-review-...
I am not an “old soul”, I just hung out with my Appalachian grandma a lot.
Website screenshot from page describing Animal Carcass Shredder machinery
Three guesses as to who I’m translating today.
I grew up in rural KY in the eighties, the same place where my dad grew up in the fifties, and my grandpa grew up in the twenties, where most people own guns for hunting and there is a school riflery club and NO ONE was ever allowed to bring a gun to school. This is an insane thing for him to say.
When I see people online, even in jest, suggest that people living in Republican-controlled states should be abandoned because of their politicians, I feel a deep heartache. New York CREATED Donald Trump and none of y’all are ever talk about it the way you disparage Alabama or Mississippi.
Translators: where could I submit an almost 8,000 word story by a prize-winning author? Lots of journals seem to emphasize a 4-5k word limit.
Jeremy Tiang really hits the nail on the head here (as would be expected).
Translation is caught between two forms of capitalist exploitation: using a per-word freelance structure to provide a bare minimum fee, and playing on its artistic nature to compel free ancillary labor alongside
I want “AI” to know no peace
Since I'm seeing a lot of talk about covers and what's on them: I love a good cover (maybe more than most!) But from my own experience, and the lived experience of many translators I know, wildly unethical practices can lurk behind a pretty cover, too. Good on the grid ≠ good labor practices
I get that it's become a kind of shorthand for respect, but just because a publisher puts a translator's name on the *front cover* (Fitzcarraldo does name translators on the back cover) doesn't mean they pay well/on time/negotiate in good faith/are honest/act like professionals (the list goes on).
Naming the translator is admirable, but worth remembering that it can also be used to hide myriad sins behind the scenes.
After you establish that niche, please write that Lexington narcotic farm novel.
New & emerging BIPOC lit translators! Apply for the Building Our Future 2-Day Virtual Workshop, meant to empower lit translators of color as they begin navigating the field. Led by poupeh missaghi & Sawad Hussain, w/ a business talk by Anni Liu. Free to participate! Apply by Monday:
It’s hot out and I would rather be by some body of water sipping this new pawpaw Ale-8 with @wrongsreversed.bsky.social
Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!
Every time someone writes a smug poorly-argued AI article like this, they’re simply demonstrating how swiftly AI has already transformed said writer’s critical thinking into a rotten log on the forest floor, studded with grubs and slime mold, gently disintegrating into humus even as we watch.
It's pub day for Rosa Mistika—and here is a lengthy interview about the novel (and much else!) with @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/17/t...
When we negotiate fair terms for ourselves, we negotiate fair terms for all translators. Be wary of work-for-hire, and of working with editors/authors/agents who don't believe translators are part of a book's success.
Today's "we're all in this together" lesson: while negotiating a translation contract this morning, I was told they couldn't offer a royalty clause because the last time this author was translated, TEN years ago, the previous translator had only agreed to a a flat fee.
Get Edgar Wilson and Bronco Gil on the case.
An old man walking his cow through the Nottinghamshire countryside on rope during the early 1980s.
While researching my novel 1983, which is based on the Nottinghamshire mining village where I grew up, I had a weird memory of a man who used to take his cow for a walk around the village, like it was a dog.
"Have I made that up?" I wondered.
So I checked my mum and dad's old photos.
I hadn't.
Every. Single. One. 🤬
Also, editors: if we ever talked about Nihonjin, that was probably long enough ago that you’re now at a new job, so I’m happy to start fresh 🫠
Front cover of Ojichan by Oscar Nakasato
Front cover of new edition of Nihonjin by Oscar Nakasato
Front cover of Três camadas de noite by Vanessa Barbara
Made it home from LBF with a few new additions. Nobody does cover design like Brazil, and nobody appreciates craft and attention to detail (matching bookmarks! embossed logo!) like the amazing Fósforo. Sample or pitch or some combination thereof available for all three.
You clearly don’t know anything about North Carolina.
View from my desk at Looren Translation House
Spending the week at Looren, where I’m surprisingly getting a lot done on my translation in spite of these distracting views
Give me ONE reason for us to use AI (in any industry) that doesn't ultimately come down to 'because it saves rich people and big corporations' money...literally just ONE and I'll listen...if it's about improving OUR productivity then it should be OUR choice AND should come at no cost to us
Ooooh! I can't wait!
Translated into English for the first time?! I had no idea!
GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: I don't know who the hell it is that's ended up convincing us—the people who want to start a revolution-to accept the idea that revolution is apocalyp-tic, catastrophic, and bloody. We need to grasp once and for all that it's counterrevolution that's apocalyptic and catastrophic and bloody. You already know the figures: more than thirty thousand dead, thousands im-prisoned, thousands tortured by the leaders of the Chilean military coup. My idea of revolution is of the search for individual happiness through collective happiness, which is the only just form of happiness.
Reading the interviews of Gabriel García Márquez and this passage stands out to me, from the 1970s but relevant in this time, that in this era the fight must be for collective happiness, which as he astutely describes, is the only kind of just happiness