Literary translators literally bring the whole world to our doorstep (and our nightstand). Part poets, part magicians, they take what an author has written in one language and conjure that world in another, making it possible for us to vividly and vicariously experience the lives of others whole continents and cultures away.
Yet despite the pleasure and necessary bridge-building literary translation provides, it remains among the least recognized sectors in the publishing landscape. Only a small fraction of books published in the U.S. are works of translation, funding is increasingly difficult to find, and translators’ careers are in jeopardy as AI looms larger by the day – just to name a few of the challenges.
So how can the literary community help create a healthier ecosystem for literary translation? Please join us for this dynamic panel with editors, translators, booksellers, and you—writers and readers—to map out next steps to keeping those stories from other lands by our bedside. The conversation, moderated by literary translator and PEN America Board Trustee Allison Markin Powell, will feature Corine Tachtiris, President of the American Literary Translators Association; Jack Kyono, Director of Marketing for McNally Jackson Books; poet and translator Soleil Davíd; and Juan Milà, Editorial Director of HarperVia.
Drawing from our translation manifestos and the ongoing work of our Translation Committee, PEN America has published a white paper which examines the current state of play for translators working within the U.S. literary market. Published in March 2026, Fairness in Publishing: The State of Literary Translation in the U.S. advocates for the role of the translator in literature, and sketches out several specific ways that the publishing industry and its professionals can better support the invaluable work of translators.
Speakers
Soleil Davíd is the author of the poetry chapbook Equatorial. Her translation from Filipino of The Compendium of Impossible Objects by Carlo Paulo Pacolor is a winner of English PEN’s PEN Translates and the USA’s National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. The Compendium of Impossible Objects is forthcoming from Tilted Axis Press in 2027.
Jack Kyono is the Director of Marketing for McNally Jackson Books, as well as Assistant Manager for their SoHo location. He lives in Brooklyn.
Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has received grants from English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations and co-translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Kaoru Takamura. As co-organizer and co-host of the Translating the Future conference, she helped to draft the Manifesto on Literary Translation and she currently represents the PEN America Translation Committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees. She is a founding member of the translator collectives Cedilla & Co. and Strong Women, Soft Power, and maintains the database Japanese Literature in English.
Juan Milà joined publisher Judith Curr’s team at HarperCollins in 2018 and is the Editorial Director of HarperVia, an imprint dedicated to publishing international authors and stories. Before that he held editorial positions at leading publishers in Spain—Planeta, El Aleph and Salamandra. He’s interested in a wide range of fiction, from literary family sagas to detective novels with a twist. Recent titles include Nino Haratischwili’s The Lack of Light, Wolf Haas’s Short Circuit and NYT’s bestseller Strange Buildings, by Uketsu. He also acquires for HarperCollins Español.
Corine Tachtiris is President of the American Literary Translators Association. She is Associate Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and prose translation editor at The Masssachusetts Review. She translates primarily the work of contemporary women authors from the Francophone Caribbean, Africa, and Canada as well as the Czech Republic.