Three admired scholars and translators will converse about their translation work and translation in general. Moderated by Associate Professor Ernesto Quiñonez.

"When we try to formulate what it means to translate poetry, we come closest to defining poetry itself. A translation of a poem is simultaneously a poem and a text about understanding it – a poem about a poem." Valzhyna Mort is Professor of the Practice in the Department of English at Cornell, the author of two books of poetry, and a translator between English and several Slavic languages. She will discuss a text as a migrant and translating speechlessness.

Edmundo Paz-Soldán teaches Latin American Literature in the Romance Studies Department at Cornell. He has written eleven novels and has been translated to eleven languages. His last novel in translation is Norte (U Chicago P). He will talk about the challenges of translating the novel Bodega Dreams, by Ernesto Quiñonez, into Spanish, focusing on the different registers of Spanish needed to make it work.

Fernando Toda is Professor of Translation at the University of Salamanca and previously taught History of the English Language at the University of Seville, in Spain. He has translated some twenty books, mostly prose and some poetry. He will be addressing key issues in professional literary translation, with special reference to his rendering of particularly challenging parts of the novel Mailman, by J. Robert Lennon, into Castilian Spanish.

Free and open to the public

Light refreshments provided

This event is sponsored by the Department of English / Program in Creative Writing