About this Event
Translators Gabriella Page-Fort, Wendy Call, and Shelley Fairweather-Vega discuss the new book Violent Phenomena: Essays Toward the Future of Literary Translation. A manifesto in 22 essays, Violent Phenomena breaks stale rules about who can and should translate, envisioning a future more reflective of the beautiful polyphony of literature in all languages.
“These essays, deftly blending the political and the personal, offer fresh, galvanizing, and passionate perspectives on literary translation.”—Jhumpa Lahiri
What would it take to unlearn centuries of colonial influence over the books we read? The values, institutions, and structures that determine which of the world’s books and authors are translated, and by whom, are in dire need of disruption. Violent Phenomena brings together established and emerging translators from around the world to guide the way.
Frantz Fanon wrote in 1961 that “Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon,” meaning that the violence of colonialism can only be counteracted in kind. As colonial legacies linger today, what are the ways in which we can disentangle literary translation from imperial violence? In stark contrast with their predecessors, who were trained to be as “neutral” as possible, the contributors to Violent Phenomena demand engagement with the translator’s identity, voice, and cultural context, which shapes the result and in turn has an outsize influence on how a writer’s work is received.
Features a new foreword by award-winning translator and author Bruna Dantas Lobato.
From Anton Hur on “The Mythical English Reader” to Sawad Hussain’s “Why Don’t You Translate Pakistanian?,” these essays face the hard questions head on, offering readers the tools they need to demand a new literary playing field.
Gabriella Page-Fort is executive editor at HarperOne, publishing nonfiction and fiction with an emphasis on works in translation. Her list includes PEN/Faulkner-longlisted Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj and PEN Translation Award-longlisted The Invisible Sun by Attar, translated from Persian by Sholeh Wolpe. She teaches Publishing Works in Translation at New York University’s School of Professional Studies, handles the book section and zine for Hex Enduction Records & Books in Seattle, and translates from French and Spanish.
Wendy Call (she/ella) is author of the award-winning nonfiction book No Word for Welcome and co-editor several anthologies: Telling True Stories and the annual Best Literary Translations. She has translated five books of poetry by Mexican women writing in Indigenous languages. She has been a Fulbright Faculty Scholar in Bogotá, Colombia, Translator in Residence at the University of Iowa, and a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Translation Fellow. She lives in Seattle, on Duwamish land, and in Oaxaca, Mexico, on Mixtec and Zapotec land.
Shelley Fairweather-Vega is a professional translator of Russian and Uzbek in Seattle, where she runs the Northwest Literary Translators, manages a library consulting business, and serves on the advisory board of the Translation Studies Hub at the University of Washington. Her translation practice focuses on the contemporary literature of Central Asia. Shelley’s translation from Uzbek of Hamid Ismailov’s We Computers: A Ghazal Novel was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, United States
USD 0.00
