Here is a look back at the time when NTM got started on the PCCC Writing Center blog in February 2013: a group of ghazals by Persian poet and mystic Hafez translated by the accomplished poet and academic Roger Sedarat. This was our 2nd post from February 2013, and one of our most popular ever, so we carried it through the archives when we moved to our current web site in 2014.
We’d love to hear what you think! Find us on twitter @TranslateMonth, share using #TranslationMonth, join our mailing list, submit a translation month event, or like our Facebook page. We hope you’ll join us and celebrate your favorite poems in translation throughout September.
Welcome to National Translation Month 2022!!This year is even more special, as National Translation Month celebrates its 10-year anniversary with exciting selections of poetry and prose in translation, as well as virtual and in-person readings. We hope you’ll be delighted and surprised every day in September and join us in our month-long celebration.
It’s been quite a ride! Since 2013, we published poetry and prose from 53 countries, including work from lesser-known languages, underrepresented voices, and spotlights on writers from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa. We featured established translators such as Nicky Harman, Diana Arterian, Cola Franzen, Margaret Jull Costa, Martín Espada, Sean Cotter, alongside emerging voices, and rising stars. We promoted classic authors, including Pablo Neruda, Osip Mandelshtam, Carmen Boullosa, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, together with hot new names like Nadia Anjuman, Xu Xiaobin, and Daniel Saldaña París. We partnered with numerous journals and organizations, including ALTA, Pen America, The Select Center in Singapore, The Harriman Institute at Columbia University, as well as many publishers of works in translation,promoting their work. We also organized an international reading series with events in 17 locations such as New York, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, Richmond, and London. You can see our growing list of Friends of NTM and our In the Media page for all our partnerships and projects over the years. Follow us throughout the month to see our most popular posts and take a look back at our (and your!) favorites.
Celebrate with us! To participate in #TranslationMonth, visit our web site for ideas or submit your event by emailing us at nationaltranslationmonth@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter @TranslateMonth, share your favorite translations using #TranslationMonth, join our mailing list, and like our Facebook page.
Let’s get started with five new poems by one of the first award-winning poets of Roma ethnicity in Romania, Emil-Iulian Sude, beautifully translated by the accomplished poet and translator, Diana Manole,who also included an insightful translator’s note with additional details about the poet and the translation process.These visceral poems will grab and rattle you with their surreal details, leaving you shaken and wanting more. We look forward to Sude’s upcoming collection in Manole’s masterful translation.
Happy National Translation Month and happy reading! —Claudia Serea and Loren Kleinman
Part II of our Special Feature dedicated to Ukrainian poetry in translation includes the poetry of Pavlo Tychyna and Kateryna Babkina translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps, Mykola Vorobiov translated by Maria G. Rewakowicz, Serhi Zhadan translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin, Lyudmyla Khersonska translated by Grace Mahoney, Olga Livshin, and Nina Kossman, Boris Khersonsky translated by Martha M. F. Kelly, Olga Livshin, and Nina Kossman, Oleg Kadanov and Halyna Kruk translated by RB Lemberg, Iryna Starovoyt translated by Grace Mahoney, and Dmitry Blizniuk transated by Nina Kossman.
Our gratitude goes to the editors at Lost Horse Press for their unwavering support and to all the editors of journals, collections, and presses where some of these poems previously appeared. Many thanks to all the poets and translators who spread the word and sent us poems in just a few days, and to our newly appointed Translations Editor, Dana Serea, who edited this special feature.
We’d also like to request your support for these tremendous poets and their translators.Many of them are still stuck in Ukraine, dealing with unthinkable difficulties—so please consider donating to the organizations below.
Send to Serhiy Zhadan’s PayPal account for humanitarian relief Name: Сергій Жадан PayPal address: sirozhazhadan@gmail.com
In addition, our Romanian-American editors recommend donating to Immigration Research Forum and Blue Heron Foundation, two organizations with volunteers on the border with Romanian and Moldova, helping Ukrainian refugees.
We will return to our regular #TranslationMonth edition in September, when we’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary. Until then, please keep sharing Ukrainian voices and stand united against the horrors of this war. Thank you all for being part of this project. #StandWithUkraine —The Editors
Welcome to our Special Feature dedicated to Ukrainian poetry in translation! Although National Translation Month happens in September each year, we couldn’t wait that long. We felt it was urgent and of utmost importance to highlight these voices rising against the invasion of a sovereign country now, when Ukraine is under attack, in a show of support, solidarity, and strength.
The response to our call was enthusiastic, so we decided to split the feature into two parts. The first installment includes the poetry of Lyuba Yakimchuk translated by Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky, and Svetlana Lavochkina, Natalka Bilotserkivets translated by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky, Iya Kiva and Lyudmyla Khersonska translated by Katherine E. Young, Mykola Bazhan and Yevhen Pluzhnyk translated by Oksana Rosenblum, Vasyl Makhno translated by Olena Jennings, Dmitry Blizniuk translated by Sergey Gerasimov, and Serhi Zhadan translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps.
Our gratitude goes to Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky, editors of the groundbreaking anthology Words for War (Academic Studies Press, 2018), which includes many of these poems, to the editors at Lost Horse Press for their unwavering support, as well as to all the editors of journals, collections, and presses where some of these poems were first published. Many thanks to all the translators who helped spread the word and sent us poems in just a few days, and to our Translations Editor, Dana Serea, who edited this special feature.
We’d also like to request your support for these tremendous poets and their translators.Many of them are still stuck in Ukraine, dealing with unthinkable difficulties—so please consider donating to the organizations below. Please keep sharing Ukrainian poetry, using #TranslationMonth, and stand united against the horrors of this war.
Send to Serhiy Zhadan’s PayPal account for humanitarian relief Name: Сергій Жадан PayPal address: sirozhazhadan@gmail.com
In addition, our Romanian-American editors recommend donating to Immigration Research Forum and Blue Heron Foundation, two organizations with volunteers on the border with Romanian and Moldova, helping Ukrainian refugees.
Thank you all for being part of this project. #StandWithUkraine —The Editors
Calling all writers and translators! Consequence is looking for submissions for their next issue. Submissions are considered for either print (Consequence journal) or their website (Consequence online). They are interested in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, reviews, visual art, and translations focused on the human consequences and realities of war and geopolitical violence.
“Man Brings Death to Beasts of the Earth” by Nina Kossman
The 9th edition of National Translation Month was a tremendous success! We’re very grateful to all the authors, translators, and event organizers who celebrated with us, and to our 6,000+ followers on social media whom we sought to inspire and engage.
We close National Translation Month 2021 on a high note: September 30 is celebrated worldwide as International Translation Day. Our parting shots are these fiery poems by Dmitry Danilov and Vlad Pryakhin translated from Russian by Nina Kossman.
Next year, National Translation Month will turn 10! Stay tuned for anniversary news, events, collaborations, and publishing opportunities we’ll announce throughout the year. Join our mailing list, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. If you think of a way you’d like to celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2022, drop us a line at nationaltranslationmonth@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to include it in our calendar.
And, if you like what we’re doing, support our efforts with a small donation here. It will help us bring more literary translations to an even wider audience in the future. The world lies open—take time to explore it. And celebrate the craft of translation in September and beyond.
“Man Brings Death to Beasts of the Earth” by Nina Kossman
Today, we’re excited to feature two Russian poets: Dmitry Danilov and Vlad Pryakhin, in beautiful translations by Nina Kossman. These fiery and unforgettable poems share a journey theme—from a Russian hell march to an eerie existential trip—encountering other strange fellow travelers. Accompanying the poems are Kossman’s oil paintings populated by beings who travel as well through their own realm of dreams and nightmares.
We’d love to hear what you think!National Translation Month is a great community with over 6,000 fans across all social media and growing. Find us on Twitter @TranslateMonth, share using #TranslationMonth, join our mailing list, or like our Facebook page. And celebrate your favorite poets in translation this September and beyond.
We’re thrilled to continue today our string of National Translation Month premieres: for the first time we’re featuring a selection of contemporary poetry from Nepal, curated and translated by the acclaimed poet and translator Yuyutsu Sharma. From the statement of a rape victim to the longing of the immigrant, to surviving the pandemic, these remarkable poems pierce the heart while bringing us a breath of fresh air straight from the slopes of the Himalayan glaciers. Many thanks to Yuyutsu Sharma for translating and sending us these beauties.
We’d love to hear from you! Follow us on Twitter @TranslateMonth, share using #TranslationMonth, join our mailing list, submit a translation month event, or like our Facebook page. We hope you’ll join us and celebrate your favorite translations of poets from all over the world in September and beyond.
Terrific poetry reading on Saturday, September 25, celebrating National Translation Month and Hispanic Heritage Month in partnership with the Rutherford Civil Right Commission! Featuring Rutherford High School students reading poems of Latin-American authors in translation. Many thanks to Dana Serea, our Editorial Assistant, who curated and hosted the event, part of the 2021 Multicultural Festival, and to Paul Frazier for making it possible.
National Translation Month continues today with a selection of poems by Antonio Machadotranslated from Spanish by Richard Greene. Antonio Machado, who ranks among Spain’s greatest 20th-century poets, is unfortunately not very well known to U.S. readers. In these poems, he invites us into the landscape of Spain where he shares his world of old griefs and spiritual symbols—always leaving us wanting more.
We’d love to hear from you! Follow us on Twitter @TranslateMonth, tag us and share using #TranslationMonth, join our mailing list, submit a translation month event, or like our Facebook page. We hope you’ll join us and celebrate your favorite translations of writers from all over the world throughout September.
