CPD: Literary Translation Workshop

February 2020

Workshop Overview

This workshop will combine text-based work and practical aspects of literary translation as a profession. The morning session will be devoted to text-related issues:

comparing different published English-language translations of the same sample text (no knowledge of source language required)
looking at typical challenges in terms of cultural or specialist knowledge
translating historical vs contemporary writers
working with editors and proofreaders

The afternoon session will focus on practical aspects of literary translation:

how to get started / how to progress
rights and permissions
pricing models and model contracts
publishing outlets
networking and CPD opportunities
balancing time, money and love of translation

There will be Q&A throughout the day.

Facilitator: Rachel McNicholl

Rachel McNicholl is a freelance translator and editor based in Dublin. She studied French, German and Italian for BA and has an MA in German Language and Literature. She has worked at home and abroad in research, teaching, journalism and publishing.

Rachel’s literary translations have appeared in journals and anthologies including The Stinging Fly, Manoa, No Man’s Land, Best European Fiction and The Short Story Project. Her translation of Nadja Spiegel’s short-story collection sometimes i lie and sometimes i don’t was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2015. Her most recent publication, co-translated with Sinéad Crowe, is The Storyteller, a novel by German-Lebanese author Pierre Jarawan (World Editions, 2019).

Rachel was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant by PEN America in 2016 and a Literature Bursary by the Irish Arts Council in 2014.