Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Time: 6:00 PM MST
In an increasingly interconnected literary world, literary translation is a most pertinent topic for authors who either would like to consider their works to be translated into other languages (English to French or vice-versa, Italian, Chinese, etc.) or are thinking of becoming literary translators. Join us in our second installment of the 101 Series this January 18, as we converse with three professional literary translators: writer Arianna Dagnino, Egyptian-Canadian novelist, poet, Yasser Abdel-Latif, and publisher Stephen Henighan (Biblioasis).
The panel is co-sponsored by the Literary Translators Association of Canada (LTAC), with thanks to its Alberta representative, Dr. Leilei Chen.
Panelists
Arianna Dagnino is a writer, literary translator, and academic researcher. Born in Genoa, Italy, she studied in London, Moscow, and Boston before entering international reporting. After earning a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of South Australia she was awarded a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship to do research on bilingual writing and self-translation at the University of Ottawa/School of Translation. She currently teaches Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Arianna has translated and published books – both in Italian and English – of fiction and creative nonfiction. She self-translated into English her post-apartheid novel The Afrikaner (Guernica Editions, Toronto), and the creative nonfiction Il Quintetto d’Istanbul (The Istanbul Quintet, Ensemble, Rome).
Stephen Henighan is the author of six novels, most recently The World of After (Cormorant Books, 2021). Since 2007, he has been General Editor of the Biblioasis International Translation Series. Henighan has translated novels into English from Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. As a translator, he has been longlisted twice for the Best Translated Book Award and once for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Yasser Abdel-Latif is a writer, poet, and translator from Cairo, Egypt. He has lived and worked in Edmonton since 2010. He has published four fiction books, three poetry collections, and translated many literary works from French and English into Arabic amongst them a volume of letters of Van Gogh. He writes mainly in Arabic although his works have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. He has participated in literary events and festivals in France, Spain, Colombia, Germany, The Netherlands, Malta, United Arab Emirates, and Korea. Abdel-Latif was a resident of the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa in 2009. His debut novel, Law of Inheritance (2002), won the Sawiris Prize in 2005 in the young writers’ category. His collection of short stories, Jonah in the Belly of the Whale, won the same prize in the category of prominent writers in 2011.
(CO-HOST) Dr. Leilei Chen is a scholar, writer, and literary translator. She wrote Reorienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-cultural Understanding (University of Regina Press, 2016) and translated Steven Grosby’s Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press) into Chinese (Yilin Press, 2017). Her memoir/travel writing, essays, and poetry translations appear in Home: Stories Connecting Us All (2017) and Looking Back, Moving Forward (Mawenzi House, Toronto, 2019), The Polyglot, Literary Review of Canada, Women of China, The Chinese Journal, and Latitude 53. She teaches at the University of Alberta.