[VIRTUAL] Women in Translation Month Reading Series (Session 2)

Moderator: Jenna Tang
Elton Uliana (translator) and Carla Bessa (Portuguese)
Dong L. Isbister (translator) and Zuo Zhongmei (Chinese)
Soje (translator) and Serang Chung (Korean)
Katherine E. Young (translator) and Anna Starobinets (Russian)
Robin Myers (translator) and Eliana Hernández Pachón (Spanish)

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Moderator

Jenna Tang is a New York-based selected translator for the 2021 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program. She translates from Chinese and Spanish. Her translations are published in Latin American Literature Today, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and elsewhere. Her interviews can be found in World Literature Today and Words Without Borders.

Panelists

Elton Uliana has a master’s degree in translation studies from University College London (UCL), where he is the coeditor of the Brazilian Translation Club. His published work includes short stories by Ana Maria Machado, Sérgio Tavares, and Jacques Fux; upcoming plays by Howard Barker; and poems by Rufo Quintavalle.

Carla Bessa is a Brazilian writer, translator, actress, and theater director based in Germany. She is the author of three books, including Urubus, winner of the 2020 Jabuti Prize in the short story category and second place winner of the 2020 Brazilian National Library Award.

Dong Isbister is an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Her research and teaching include collective memory, immigration, transnational feminism, environmental humanities, ecotourism, women’s literature, and translation and interpreting studies. She has published scholarly and creative works in English and Chinese.

Zuo Zhongmei (左中美) is a prolific writer from the Yi ethnic group in China. She has published multiple prose collections. Zuo is a recipient of the Dali Literature and Art Award, the Yunnan Provincial Foundation Award for Creative Works, and the Lingshui Cup Ethnic Literary Award.

Soje is the translator of Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla (Tilted Axis Press, 2020), Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon (Honford Star, 2021), and Lee Soho’s Catcalling (Open Letter Books, 2021). They also make chogwa, a quarterly e-zine featuring one Korean poem and multiple English translations.

Serang Chung is the highly acclaimed and beloved author of nine novels, two illustrated novellas, two short story collections, and an essay collection. Her novel The School Nurse Files was adapted into a Netflix original series in 2020.

Katherine E. Young is the author of Woman Drinking Absinthe and Day of the Border Guards. She has translated prose by Akram Aylisli and Anna Starobinets and poetry by numerous Russophone writers. Young was named a 2017 NEA translation fellow, and she served as the inaugural poet laureate for Arlington, VA.

Anna Starobinets writes in multiple genres, including journalism, science fiction, horror, and children’s books. All her novels have been nominated for the Russian National Bestseller Prize; in 2014, Starobinets won the National Bestseller Prize in the Young Writers category. Look at Him is her only book-length work of nonfiction.

Robin Myers is a Mexico City-based poet and translator. Recent translations include Cars on Fire by Mónica Ramón Ríos, The Restless Dead by Cristina Rivera Garza, and Animals at End of the World by Gloria Susana Esquivel.

Eliana Hernández Pachón is a poet and anthropologist. She has an MFA in creative writing in Spanish from New York University. She currently lives in Ithaca, NY, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Latin American literature. La mata (Laguna Libros/Cardumen, 2020) is her first book.