In spite of globalization, English-language publishing remains relatively impermeable to literature in translation. This is a common cause of complaint among translators. In recent years, however, a number of large-scale literary translation projects have been undertaken, new publishers for translations have appeared, some Australian publishers have commissioned translations locally, and the discipline of translation studies has continued to grow and diversify. What is the current state of literary translation in Australia and internationally? This symposium will gather practitioners and theorists of literary translation from Australia and overseas to discuss the issues which currently define the art of translation.

The two keynote speakers will be Esther Allen from the US, and Marcelo Cohen from Argentina. Esther Allen is Executive Director of the Centre for Literary Translation at Columbia University, and editor of the PEN report on literary translation and globalization To Be Translated or Not To Be: her translations from Spanish and French include José Manuel Prieto’s Rex, Felisberto Hernández’s Lands of Memory, Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s The Good Cripple, Javier Marías’ Dark Back of Time, Marie Darrieusecq’s My Phantom Husband and Linda Lê’s Slander. Marcelo Cohen, is a novelist and critic as well as a translator who has translated more than sixty books into Spanish from English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan, including Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, the Notebooks of Henry James, Philip Larkin’s High Windows, Alasdair Gray’s Unlikely Stories, Mostly, and Alice Munro’s Hateship, Loveship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.

There will be four panel discussions, organised around the themes ‘The Classic in Translation’, ‘Styles of Translation’, ‘Ideas of the Literary’ and ‘The Poetic in Translation’. The panels will feature Australia’s best known translators, including Meredith McKinney, John Minford, Julie Rose, Chris Andrews, Thon-That Quynh-Du, Harry Aveling, Simon Patton and Peter Boyle. Their expertise in translation ranges across Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Spanish, French and Italian. We are also pleased to welcome, among the guests from overseas, Olivia Sears, President of the Centre for the Art of Translation in San Francisco, and Eric Abrahamsen, founder of the Paper Republic Chinese literary translation group, www.paper-republic.org

For further information about the symposium, including the draft program and registration details, please go to our website:

http://www.uws.edu.au/writing_society/writing_and_society/sydney_symposium_on_literary_translation