American Literary Translators Association

American Literary Translators Association
Name	American Literary Translators Association
Formation	1978
Type	Nonprofit organization
Headquarters	United States
Region served	United States, International
Membership	Translators, scholars, publishers

American Literary Translators Association is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting the art and craft of literary translation in the United States. It supports translators working between languages such as Spanish, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Ukrainian, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, and more. The Association connects practitioners, publishers, scholars, and cultural institutions to foster exchange among communities including those represented by institutions like the Modern Language Association, PEN America, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

History

Founded in 1978 amid growing interest in international literature, the Association formed when translators and scholars affiliated with universities such as Columbia University, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and Yale University sought a national forum. Early activity intersected with literary organizations including PEN International, Poet Laureate of the United States, Kingsley Amis, Octavio Paz, Gabriel García Márquez, T. S. Eliot, Marina Tsvetaeva, and publishers like Penguin Books, HarperCollins, Faber and Faber, Vintage Books, and Random House. The Association’s development paralleled international events such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the expansion of translation studies in programs at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, and initiatives by cultural agencies such as the British Council and the Instituto Cervantes.

Mission and Activities

The Association advances literary translation through professional development, networking, and public programming, collaborating with organizations like National Endowment for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and libraries such as the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress. Activities include mentorships, residencies with partners like Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, and collaborations with festivals such as the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Brooklyn Book Festival, Miami Book Fair, Prague Writers' Festival, and Hay Festival. The Association’s work resonates with translators of figures like Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Homer, Dante Alighieri, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Marcel Proust, Isabel Allende, Haruki Murakami, Natsume Sōseki, Rumi, and Li Bai.

Membership and Organization

Membership comprises freelance translators, in-house staff at presses like New Directions Publishing, Graywolf Press, Archipelago Books, Dalkey Archive Press, and academics from departments at Stanford University, Princeton University, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Duke University. Governance typically includes a board drawn from practitioners with connections to awards such as the Man Booker Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Award, and grants from bodies including Canada Council for the Arts and Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes. The Association liaises with agencies like LibraryThing, Poets & Writers, Literary Translators' Association of Canada, European Council of Literary Translators' Associations, and cultural centers including Goethe-Institut and Alliance Française.

Annual Conferences and Events

Annual conferences rotate across venues in cities such as New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Austin, Texas, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Washington, D.C., and sometimes in partnership with international gatherings like Frankfurt Book Fair and BookExpo America. Conferences feature panels on translating works by authors associated with Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Clarice Lispector, Kenzaburō Ōe, Samuel Beckett, and discussions about publishing houses such as Verso Books and The New Press. Events include readings, workshops, speed-translation sessions, and panels with editors from The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Granta, The New Yorker, and journals like Words Without Borders.

Awards and Prizes

The Association administers prizes and offers nominations and juried awards comparable to honors like the PEN Translation Prize, the National Translation Award, the TA First Translation Prize, the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and prizes from the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. It recognizes excellence in translation of poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction, celebrating translations of works by authors connected to prizes including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Booker International Prize, and the Cervantes Prize. The Association’s awards amplify translators who work on texts by writers such as Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Czesław Miłosz, Vladimir Nabokov, Svetlana Alexievich, Elena Ferrante, Ismail Kadare, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy.

Publications and Resources

The Association publishes newsletters, directories, and style guides for literary translation, alongside bibliographies and position papers that reference resources like Modern Language Association, Chicago Manual of Style, and archives at institutions such as The British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Biblioteca Nacional de España, and National Library of China. It promotes journals and platforms including Translation Review, The Translator, New Literary Observer, Asymptote, and Words Without Borders, and curates reading lists featuring translations by Constance Garnett, Edwin Muir, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Gregory Rabassa, Susan Bernofsky, and Ann Goldstein.

Advocacy and Outreach

The Association advocates for fair contracts, rights, and visibility for translators in partnership with organizations such as Authors Guild, Society of Authors, Writers Guild of America, American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Coalition Against Censorship, and cultural missions like United States Embassy cultural affairs. Outreach includes school programs, public lectures at venues like Carnegie Hall, Smithsonian Institution, and collaborations with museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art to highlight translated literature and cross-cultural exchange.

Category:Translation organizations Category:Non-profit organizations based in the United States