Aron Aji, Director of Translation Programs, and Kelsi Vanada, a distinguished alum of the Translation Program, were featured guests on Talk of Iowa with Charity Nebbe on April 4th. During the interview, they delved into the transformative journey of the translation program at the University of Iowa, shedding light on its remarkable growth and evolution. Together, they articulated the nuances of translation as both an intricate artform and a meticulous process. To listen to the interview, click the title of this posting above!

Aron Aji, the director of the Translation programs, and AJ Javaheri, a second-year Literary Translation MFA student, presented for Writers@Grinnell on February 21st for a roundtable about literary translation with the college faculty and students. In the afternoon, they appeared in the Grinnell College Museum of Art for a reading session and read excerpts from their translations.

Please join us in welcoming Kaija Straumanis as the Translator in Residence for the Spring 2024 semester. Straumanis is an award-winning translator from the Latvian, and editorial director at Open Letter Books. Her published translations include works by Inga Ābele, Zigmunds Skujiņš, Jānis Joņevs, and Gundega Repše, among others. Her current projects include FOREST DAUGHTERS (MEŽA MEITAS, ed. Sanita Reinsone), for which she received a 2020 NEA Literature in Translation fellowship, and THE RIVER by Laura Vinogradova (forthcoming next year from Open Letter Books), one of three titles in Open Letter’s 2024 Translator Triptych, which Straumanis also curated.

The University of Iowa’s Translation Program extends our warmest congratulations to MFA in Literary Translation alumna Bruna Dantas Lobato ('19) for winning the prestigious National Book Award in Translation for her translation of Stênio Gardel's debut novel The Words That Remain (New Vessel Press) from Portuguese.

Diana Thow is a literary translator and scholar working from Italian. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley (2020) and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa (2008).  Her academic research areas include Translation Studies, translation pedagogy, poetry and poetics, gender and translation, the translator's archive, Italian, French, and Anglophone literatures from the 19th century to the present and her publications include “Translation Pedagogy in the Literature Classroom: Close Reading and the Hermeneutic Model of Translation,” in L2 Journal: The Future of Translation in Higher Education (Fall 2021). She is currently at work on a book project about translations of poetry by women in Italy and the USA during the 1930s and 40s. As a literary translator she has received a Best Translated Book Award, and her publications include Close To The Teeth by Elisa Biagini, translated with Sarah Stickney, Autumn Hill Books (2021) and Hospital Series by Amelia Rosselli, Otis/Seismicity Books (2017). 

Coinciding with the release of their latest issue, Ancient Exchanges editors Adrienne Rose, Laura Moser, and Echo Smith represented the journal at the annual Society for Classical Studies conference hosted in New Orleans in January, where they organized a panel called "Making Space for Translation" devoted to the vital role translation plays in Classical Studies pedagogy, scholarship, and publication. Presentations on the manifold "spaces" in which translation lives (from the metrical and miniscule to indigenous and interdisciplinary) were followed by a lively discussion with participation from both in-person and Zoom audiences.

The Faculty Fellow in Residence will be fully integrated into an energetic translation environment of emerging and seasoned translators and will gain a comprehensive understanding of and hands-on experience in the diverse dimensions of translation training. Fellows are expected to be in residence for the academic year and participate fully in the life of the Translation Program.

The new National Resource Center is intended to extend the UI’s reach beyond literary translation. Its four key aims are to: —promote translation and global literacy across the University of Iowa, —support faculty development and research, —promote translation and global literacy among educators at all levels, and —create a research hub and resource library for public use.