A little more than a year ago, a survey by the Society of Authors found that more than a third of its translator members had lost work due to generative artificial intelligence. Since then, the threat AI represents to literary translators has only ballooned — despite the talent and insight they bring to fiction and poetry produced across the globe.
In May, Audible announced that it would begin rolling out AI translation in beta later this year, offering select international publishers audiobooks in their local languages. Both Veen Bosch & Keuning, Netherlands’ largest book publisher, and Taylor & Francis, a UK publisher, have also said they would use AI to translate books into English, with the latter claiming that doing so will make “important texts available to a broad readership at speed, without compromising on accuracy.” Most recently, GlobeScribe.ai, a UK-based startup, launched an AI translation service that charges $100 per book, per language for use of its services.
In light of this news, PEN America’s Translation Committee is marking Women in Translation Month, which begins on August 1, with a renewed commitment to the human talent essential to literary translation as a creative practice, said Allison Markin Powell, who represents the Translation Committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees. Powell, who translates from Japanese to English, received the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami.
“As our Manifesto on Literary Translation affirms, publishers and other literary institutions must do all that they can to ensure that translation is a financially viable profession,” Powell said. “We are gravely disappointed in the companies that have decided to turn to AI over highly skilled translators, betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of literary translation and showcasing an astounding lack of appreciation for artistic labor. This Women in Translation Month, we call upon authors, readers, and publishers to commit to supporting the translators who dedicate themselves to sharing literature and culture across the globe.”
To celebrate the month, the Translation Committee curated a reading list of 19 works by women writers and translators. Here’s an overview of the titles translated into English from 16 languages:
Translated from Dutch by Hester Velmans, Hard Copy by Fien Veldman tells the hilarious yet poignant story of a frustrated, lonely customer service assistant who befriends her office’s printer. (Bookshop)
Translated from Spanish by Emily Hunsberger, Wonderland: Crónicas of Belonging takes its readers on a road trip to all of the places in América that shaped the identity of its author, Melanie Márquez Adams. (Bookshop)
Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher, Pioneer Summer by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova chronicles a forbidden queer romance set in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. (Bookshop)
Translated from Danish by Caroline Waight, Blue Notes by Anne Cathrine Bomann imagines the creation of the world’s first pill for grief, inviting its readers to meditate on love, loss, and greed. (Bookshop)
Translated from Finnish by Mia Spangenberg, the autofictional novel Lowest Common Denominator follows a young Pirkko Saisio in 1950s Finland as she struggles to understand her place in the world. (Bookshop)
Translated from German by Tess Lewis, the historical novella The Honditsch Cross explores themes that preoccupied its renowned author, Ingeborg Bachmann, for the rest of her career as a writer. (Bookshop)
Translated from French by Nancy Naomi Carlson, Solio by Samira Negrouche comprises poetry sequences that evoke a multitude of landscapes, including Algiers, Timbuktu, N’Djamena, Cotonou, Zanzibar, Cape Town, and Gorée. (Bookshop)
Translated from Spanish by Kristen Dykstra, Jigs and Lures is a collection of Reina María Rodríguez’s poetry dedicated to exploring the creation of aesthetic identity. (Bookshop)
Translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan, Where We Stand by Djamila Ribeiro offers an intervention into contemporary theories about power and identity so ingenious that it inspired a Black feminist movement in Brazil. (Bookshop)
Translated from Ukrainian by Nina Murray, Algometry by Iryna Vikyrchak investigates, through lyric, the pain, empathy, and resilience of the generation of Ukrainians who grew up in the 1990s. (Bookshop)
Translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, the metafictional novel Taiwan Travelogue by Shuang-zi Yang reveals how even our most intimate relationships are shaped by complex political dynamics. (Bookshop)
Translated from French and Haitian Kreyòl by Danielle Legros Georges, Blue Flare illuminates the complexity of life in Haiti and its diaspora in the 21st century through the work of three female poets: Évelyne Trouillot, Marie-Celie Agnant, and Maggy de Coster. (Bookshop)
Translated from Chinese by Chenxin Jiang, for now I am sitting here growing transparent by Yau Ching grapples with a wide range of topics, touching upon gender, aesthetics, colonialism, relationships, and illness. (Bookshop)
Translated from Catalan by AKaiser, Unnamable is one of the prolific poet Anna Gual’s many collections but the first available to an English readership. (Bookshop)
Translated from Croatian by Ena Selimovic, Underground Barbie by Masa Kolanovic follows a young girl, equipped with only dolls and her imagination, during the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. (Bookshop)
Translated from Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, Wildcat Dome by Yuko Tsushima tells the story of two friends who choose to reunite in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. (Bookshop)
Translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhashti, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq delves into the daily struggles of Muslim girls and women in southern India. (Bookshop)
Translated from Persian by Mojdeh Bahar, Silence and Lost Words is a selection of Rouhangiz Karachi’s poetry that depicts women’s social struggles. (Bookshop)
Translated from Chinese by Annelise Finegan, My Sister’s Red Shirt by Tie Ning is a coming-of-age novella about two radically different siblings. (Bookshop)
