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Alex Zucker

Alex Zucker is an award-winning translator of Czech literature. He also works in editing and communications, and currently serves as cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee.

He has three translations out in 2016: Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life by Josef Jedlička (Karolinum Press), Love Letter in Cuneiform by Tomáš Zmeškal (Margellos World Republic of Letters at Yale University Press), and The Attempt by Magdaléna Platzová (Bellevue Literary Press).

His translation of Heda Margolius Kovály’s Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street (2015, Soho Press) was

Articles by Alex Zucker

Thursday April 7

Four Questions for Sawako Nakayasu, Winner of the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation

“The Sagawa book presented a special challenge, which was that the Modernist sensibility and language, especially in this particular Japanese context, was unlike anything I had ever seen, and had no immediate parallel in English-language literature.”

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Thursday April 7

Four Questions for Katrina Dodson, Winner of the 2016 PEN Translation Prize

I’ve thought often about how translation requires extreme humility, to be able to recede into the shadows and let one’s style be subsumed by another’s. Translators work hard not to be noticed.

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Thursday August 6

2015 PEN Translation Prize: Four Questions for Winner Denise Newman

“The great pleasure of translating is being able to enter into the timelessness of the text…there’s comfort in such concentrated work. It must be the language equivalent of what musicians experience.”

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More Articles by Alex Zucker

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Thursday August 6

2015 PEN Poetry in Translation Award: Four Questions for Winner Eliza Griswold

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Tuesday June 23

A View from the United States: The PEN America Translation Committee

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Monday June 8

Retranslating, Publicizing, and Pitching: PEN Translation Committee Brings Its Expertise to BEA15

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Thursday May 14

PEN America Translation Committee at BEA 2015