We have a cover and it's beautiful!!!
BLUE LIGHT HOURS, my snowy, melancholy & lyrical novel of distance, intimacy, & care between a mother and daughter is coming on Oct. 15, 2024
@groveatlantic
😭💙
Pre-order from your fave bookstore or
@Bookshop_Org
:
I woke up this morning and remembered I won a National Book Award!!!! For my translation of Stênio Gardel's The Words That Remain, a coming-of-age and coming out debut novel that's moved me to tears
@NewVesselPress
I spent 7+ years writing a Word doc about life across languages and countries, and now it's going to be a real book!!!! BLUE LIGHT HOURS is out in Fall 2024 from dream publishers
@groveatlantic
in the US and
@cialetras
in Brazil 😭😭😭🌟✨💫
Overjoyed to be longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize!!! Many thanks to
@PENamerica
and the judges for including Abreu's Moldy Strawberries, and to
@archipelagobks
for publishing this weird little book by one of my favorite writers on Earth.
Friendly reminder that colonizers don't own their languages. Only 5% of Portuguese speakers live in Portugal. Only 8% of Spanish speakers live in Spain. English is the official language of 61 countries.
In 2024, I'll teach at Bennington College, teach a workshop at Bread Loaf, speak and read at Brown and Dartmouth, spend a whole month at MacDowell, publish two book translations, AND publish my debut novel in two languages!!! I'm both overjoyed and a little nauseous 😭😭😭
My advice for new translators is to be patient and persistent. I carried a copy of MOLDY STRAWBERRIES in Portuguese for 5 years before I ever even pitched it anywhere, then spent another 2 years pitching and translating.
Stênio Gardel and I are longlisted for the
@nationalbook
Award for Translated Literature for his beautiful debut novel THE WORDS THAT REMAIN!!!!! I'm speechless!🤯🤯🤯🤯
@NewVesselPress
We are thrilled to announce the 2023
#NBAwards
Longlist for Translated Literature! |
@NewYorker
This year’s Longlist includes ten books originally published in seven different languages: Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
I published my first book-length translation
@archipelagobks
this year, had a story in THE F-ING NEW YORKER, and got my first nomination for Best American Short Stories! A good writing year, despite life!
This might never be published but let the record show I wrote it, a miracle as far as I'm concerned! And am allowed to say I love the final result? I really do. These characters are my whole heart ❤️
We’re thrilled to announce that Bruna Dantas Lobato (
@bdantaslobato
) has joined WWB as our digital marketing and communications coordinator!
Read what she has to say about bilingualism, tiny dollhouses, and translating Caio Fernando Abreu:
An archaeology of affections: Pedro searches for his murdered father in the objects he left behind.
THE DARK SIDE OF SKIN by Jeferson Tenório (tr. Bruna Dantas Lobato)
MOLDY STRAWBERRIES by Caio Fernando Abreu is officially out in my English translation!!! Many thanks to
@archipelagobks
, all who have pre-ordered and reviewed it, and my favorite author for having written this gorgeous book. So proud of this one 💘💘🍓🍓🍓
Wrote my first Translator's Note ever for THE DARK SIDE OF SKIN by
@jefempessoa
for
@CharcoPress
and now I want to write hundreds of these. It's such a fun, brainy, and personal genre, and one I love to read too. I'd 100% buy an anthology of best translator's notes/afterwords
@svbowlin
I love Grief by Andrew Holleran, Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (tr. Aneesa Abbas Higgins), Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, anything by Tove Jansson (tr. Thomas Teal), Difficult Light by Tomás González (tr. Andrea Rosenberg), Love by Hanne Ørstavik (tr. Martin Aitken)
I'm working on something about being a translator translating into my second language, and it's been interesting to see how so much of it has nothing to do with writing but with the politics of language, with the socially engineered monolingualism of English classrooms. 1/3
Casually browsing through the websites of translation presses in the US and the UK to see how many BIPOC translators they've published, and turns out most of them have published none. ZERO.
A film of
@nationalbook
award winning novel THE WORDS THAT REMAIN will start production in Brazil, aimed at U.S. and intl markets.
@DEADLINE
reports the company working on the project did
@paramountplus
series Spider and
@netflix
series Invisible City.
🩵 ✨it's an absolute joy and delight to announce
@bdantaslobato
's exquisite debut BLUE LIGHT HOURS, a moving, wise, and elegant novel of mothers and daughters, migration, and tenderness, coming from
@groveatlantic
with the mighty help of
@svbowlin
!
NEW FOR 2025: The
#Pulitzer
Board has decided to expand eligibility for the Books, Drama and Music awards beyond the current U.S. citizenship requirement to include U.S. permanent residents and those who have made the U.S. their longtime primary home.
I wrote a story/novel chapter called "Reunion," about a mother visiting her daughter in the US after years apart. Now, in an art-imitates-life moment, I finally get to live my own version of this! On Tuesday, I'll see my mom for the first time in 5y 😭😭
"Special thanks to Bruna for capturing the heart and the breath of the book and writing them down in your own beautiful words."
Author Stênio Gardel (r.) thanks translator Bruna Dantas Lobato as they accept the National Book Award for Translated Literature.
#NBAwards
It says more about them and their sheltered lives than about young writers, when someone says writers in their 20s and 30s haven't lived enough to have anything to say. By 30, I'd survived poverty and domestic violence, emigrated, worked so many odd jobs, bought my first home
I have a new short story up in
@GuernicaMag
! Much gratitude to my agent
@svbowlin
and editor
@adalva
for their brilliant suggestions, and to my mother for traveling 40+ hours to see me, despite the distance and the cold, like the sweet mother in the story
Can't believe my translation of Caio Fernando Abreu's MOLDY STRAWBERRIES is rec'd in this 2022 preview from
@nytimesbooks
!!! Do my eyes deceive me?!?!?!
@archipelagobks
I found out this morning I got into Yaddo and I screamed so loud I startled myself! So so excited to get a lot of writing done and finish my manuscript, and maybe, just maybe, share it with the word one day 💕✨
For
@lithub
, I wrote about translating Caio Fernando Abreu's rhythmic prose, Brazilian music, and queer longing, feat. my Moldy Strawberries playlist!
@archipelagobks
The application portal is open for the 2024 Bread Loaf Translators' Conference! I couldn't be more excited about the faculty and guests. Financial aid is available, too, and next summer we celebrate our 10th year
@AntonHur
@bdantaslobato
@EmilyRCWilson
PT translators: When you get an invite to translate texts from the Northeast of Brazil, please consider passing them on to me. I know the area, dialect, and culture well, and have better solutions than making everyone sound like they're from Mississippi
Can't wait to discuss moonlighting as a translator, hobbies, community, staying organized, and making a living with
@jshyue
at the
@Center4Fiction
on Oct. 21!
Register for free here:
YES!!! People who think this is ~controversial~ should check out Karen Emmerich's Literary Translation and the Making of Originals, and maybe also try and understand that narrative functions differently in different languages. Translation is an art, what can I say
I realize this is controversial and some translation students in Korea freak out if they find so much as a sentence moved to somewhere else in the same paragraph 😜 But quite often, titles and story order in the source is decided by the editor anyway. And they’re not the author.
@svbowlin
And of course I also love everyone's favorite quiet English-language novelists like Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy, Aysegül Savas, Sigrid Nunez, etc. Nunez's Feather on the Breath of God is an old favorite of mine
I woke up this morning and remembered I won a National Book Award!!!! For my translation of Stênio Gardel's The Words That Remain, a coming-of-age and coming out debut novel that's moved me to tears
@NewVesselPress
I had the pleasure of writing about Ling Ma's brilliant collection Bliss Montage, out today from
@fsgbooks
, for
@astra_mag
! With many thanks to
@Samuel_Rutter
for having me and for the smart edits
On my flight home after
#ALTA44
, feeling so thankful for and energized by all the great conversations! Now I'm going to write a book-length essay on exhophonic translation and the native speaker fallacy. Brb
It's 3am on a Tuesday and I just finished writing the last chapter of my very personal novel manuscript about immigration and sickness. Cue the waterworks, please 😭😭😭
I stayed up until 3 am last night reading
@lydiakiesling
's THE GOLDEN STATE, and my god what a smart, stunning, and heartbreaking book on motherhood, white privilege, escape, and immigration. Will miss Daphne and sweet Honey tonight 💕
THE WORDS THAT REMAIN
@DublinLitAward
2024 longlist for intl fiction! The novel by Stênio Gardel translated
@bdantaslobato
praised by nominating librarians as poetic “tender and sad love story” that “explores language and how it affects human relations.”
Happy pub day to the great
@GardelStenio
, whose beautifully queer debut novel THE WORDS THAT REMAIN made me cry so many times as I translated it from Portuguese last spring. Out now from
@NewVesselPress
!
I'm so thrilled to be one of the recipients of
@PENamerican
's PEN/Heim Grants for my translation of Caio Fernando Abreu's timeless, minimalist stories about otherness and allyship, loneliness and companionship.
Can't wait to see my translation of THE DARK SIDE OF SKIN by
@jefempessoa
out in the world! Forthcoming from
@CharcoPress
in Feb. 2024, with thanks to support from
@englishpen
Delighted to be a part of this list with two upcoming titles: THE DARK SIDE OF SKIN and THE PLAINS.
A huge shoutout to
@englishpen
who work so tirelessly to support those of us trying to bring you the good stuff from across the globe!
I make realistic miniature houses for fun, complete with tiny furniture and tiny books. And I love that about myself! I think it's cool and strange that when I'm not writing I'm designing sets for my stories. A fellow (male) writer told me maybe I shouldn't tell people that--
For anyone who can read both Portuguese and English: I run an online Reading Group with
@andothertweets
where we discuss the most exciting literature coming out of Lusophone countries and consider it for publication.
🚨🚨 APPLY TODAY! 🚨🚨 We're hiring a Digital Engagement & Communications Manager who's organized and passionate about increasing access to and engagement with groundbreaking literature from around the world. Full-time and remote (Tristate area preferred).
These blurbs!!! I'm so happy other people like this book as much as me! Thank you,
@jstheater
,
@jaawlfins
, Lucy Ives, Rick Moody, and Rikki Ducornet 😭😭😭
7/27: Join us for a virtual event with literary translators
@AntonHur
and
@bdantaslobato
for a conversation examining the cultural concepts and nuance around translating gender and sexuality. This event will be held on Zoom.
I'll be teaching another session of my translation craft class with
@CatapultStory
in a couple of weeks! Sign up here to hear me talk about style, technique, and how to find
a project that is right for you:
So excited for this queer Brazil collection from
@TwoLinesPress
! Join us virtually for the launch at
@booksaremagicbk
on Sept. 28. I'll talk about queerness in translation, Caio Fernando Abreu, and much more 🐈🐈🐈
I'm so so delighted to be a 2018 A Public Space Fellow! I've been reading and admiring the beautiful, unexpected, original writing in the magazine since I was 18. Being a part of this is the dream of dreams. ✨
We are thrilled to announce the 2018 A Public Space Fellows:
@latoyaswatkins
,
@bdantaslobato
, and
@deborahtaffa
. Many thanks to everyone who submitted, and congratulations to the new Fellows!
Put February 2024 in your diaries, guys, because one of the best Brazilian novels of this century is coming your way in a translation by
@bdantaslobato
(we stan an icon). V happy that
@CharcoPress
are publishing this (though I’ll miss the beautiful Antônio Obá cover)
Very pleased to have one of my translations of Caio Fernando Abreu's work in this issue! Many thanks to
@BOMBmagazine
for giving it a home, and don't forget to pre-order the whole collection
@archipelagobks
The winter issue is here, just in time for the holidays! Featuring interviews with Marina Adams,
@jbbeacham
, Renée Green,
@JamesHannaham
, Ilona Ruegg,
@SaadBassem
, Solmaz Sharif, Henry Threadgill, & Martha Tuttle. Pre-order your copy of BOMB
#158
today.
It's a Saturday night and I'm a nerd, so I made a Spotify playlist of every song referenced in Caio Fernando Abreu's MOLDY STRAWBERRIES, which I had the honor to translate for
@archipelagobks
.
Congratulations, 2023
@nationalbook
Award for Translated Literature winners
@bdantaslobato
and Stênio Gardel! We’ve been celebrating by revisiting our interview with this writer/translator combo—you can check it out here:
@newvesselpress
Stênio Gardel and I are longlisted for the
@nationalbook
Award for Translated Literature for his beautiful debut novel THE WORDS THAT REMAIN!!!!! I'm speechless!🤯🤯🤯🤯
@NewVesselPress
I'm not ready to share the whole thing yet, in all its glorious and righteous anger, but here's a sneak peek: "But if we must compare, why not call them monocultural translators, and myself just a translator? No exophonic, non-native, preceding me..." 2/3
My favorite thing about working at
@wwborders
has been getting the chance to read contemporary lit from all over the world every single day. This story from Oman is one of my favorites. Such beautiful writing, and so heartbreaking. 💘💘
“My bedroom ceiling began to drip. The pots and pans lined up to catch her tears were bone dry, but I was nearly drowning.”
It’s day thirty of
#WITMonth
! Read this story about gender transitioning by Omani writer Badriya al-Badri, tr. Ghayde Ghraowi.
I just came across a line in my manuscript that is so damn good I thought I wasn't the one who wrote it. I googled it, then googled it again, and all indicates I really thought of it myself, much to my delight! May my writing surprise me more and more often this coming year <3
So glad I got to speak with
@snavejc
@TwoLinesPress
, Sunyoung Lee
@kayapress
, & Khaled Mattawa
@mqr
about translation! Our virtual
#AWP22
panel "Publishing Books in Translation: An Overview of Best Practices," sponsored by
@CLMPorg
, goes live on Friday:
In 2018, I started running, began to live alone, translated a book, wrote a draft of another one, let myself eat dessert whenever I felt like it, hired an immigration lawyer, visited my homeland and got to know another one, received my first awards, and found out I like smoothies
Next Wednesday 7/27 with
@strandbookstore
! Join translators
@AntonHur
and
@bdantaslobato
for a virtual conversation examining the cultural concepts and nuance around translating gender and sexuality.
RSVP here:
You know what would be nice? If publishers actually welcomed latino translators from time to time, not just "authoritative" white translators who love Latin America. You can welcome both!
My doctor just asked me if I was a writer based solely on how I held my pen to sign some paperwork. Apparently my whole demeanor changed, which is the strangest and coolest compliment I've ever gotten as a writer, but I'd also believe if she told me she was psychic 👀
Thank you,
@laurencocking
for this lovely conversation on coping with intense content as a translator, simultaneously resisting and yearning for the West, immigrant loneliness, writing my kind of immigrant novel, and more:
My favorite magazine (and dream employer)
@wwborders
's January issue features animals in fiction translated from eight languages. Cue all the animal gifs!
Our January 2022 issue travels back in time and through our archive to round up international stories featuring animals both wild and tame. Tales translated from eight languages explore the complexities of human-animal relationships. Read the issue:
Dear friends, if any of you have taught one of my translations, stories, or virtual panels in the past, would you please send me your syllabus? It would be of immense help to my immigration case
One weird thing about being a writer who's also a translator is having readers occasionally ask me who's the writer of my own stories. Me, I wrote it, I say. You? You wrote it in English? they ask in astonishment. And I'm left confused about what's so shocking about that🧐
I adore this 2018 commemorative doodle from in honor of Caio Fernando Abreu. Can we bring it to the US homepage for the English-language release of Moldy Strawberries this month
@Google
? Pretty please?
@archipelagobks
I heard
@bdantaslobato
read from Moldy Strawberries by Caio Fernando Abreu over the summer, and it took root in some corner in me. Excited to read the rest (accompanied by the author's indicated playlist) and respond Bruna's heart-wrenching translation. Book comes out April 2022.
Many thanks to Rick Moody for a great chat about writing queerness, translating style, and Caio Fernando Abreu's MOLDY STRAWBERRIES
@archipelagobks
! Catch the recording this Friday at 2pm EST at
@santjordiusa
festival: