Class Starts Thursday, May 15th, 2025

The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Thursdays, 7:00PM ET - 9:00PM ET).

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Jenna Tang is a Taiwanese writer, educator, and translator who translates between Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and English. She is a board member and chair of the Equity Advocates Committee at the American Literary Translators Association. Her translations and essays are published in McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, The Paris Review, Latin American Literature Today, World Literature Today, Catapult, AAWW, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. Her translations include Taiwanese feminist author Taiwan’s most iconic #MeToo movement title, Lin Yi-Han’s novel, Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise (HarperVia), and have given talks about translation, languages, and gender movements across 16 universities in the States.

Read an Interview with Jenna on Breaking into Literary Translation and get to know her in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

The translation workshop will explore various themes in translation, and will provide insights for students yet to understand more about the literary communities and the world of publishing.

Literary translation has become more and more popular for writers and those who are seeking to build their own creative genres/works in the literary world. Literary translation is about reading literature from around the world, sometimes in non-English languages, but how do we get more involved in the world of literary translation?

Literary Translation has been long overlooked in the literary world––however, literary translation means reading world literature, the labor of understanding various languages in order to bring voices, narratives, poems, and more to the English-speaking world and beyond. There are books we love in various languages, but how do we bring them to another world through literary translation? How do we become literary translators?

In this six-week translation workshop, we'll walk our emerging translators through different translation themes in the world of translators, and to understand the process of reading with an eye for translation, approaching languages, rights, building relationships with authors, publishers, and the community as a whole; we'll also get into the nits and grits of publishing world with the objective of understanding how to pitch shorter translations to literary magazines, apply for fellowships, conferences as a literary translator, and how we can eventually approach pitching a book-length literary translation project to various publishers.

The participants will walk away with their translation samples and a clear understanding of what to prepare to get more involved in the world of literary translation and at the same time, be introduced to the literary translators' community if they wish.

This is a workshop for those who are looking to delve deeper into literary translation, and those who enjoy reading a wide range of literary works from around the world. The workshop will provide resources for those who are seeking a community but so far lack the access to bring their projects further to publications.

It would be great if you join this workshop with a project already started but would need guidance for, but if you're keen in starting off a new translation project but haven't, this is the workshop where you could potentially get some ideas and start of your first/next projects! 

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Introduction to Literary Translation & World Literature

Week 2: Voices in Translation: Translating Conversation and Internal Dialogues

Week 3: Queering Translation: Literature about Feminism and Gender Movements /

Week 4: Translating Strange and Surreal Narratives

Week 5: Translating Hybrid Genres 

Week 6: Business Side of Literary Translation: How do we pitch our works in translation? 

COURSE TEXTS:

• Sawako Nakayasu’s Say Translation Is Art
• Violent Phenomena (Tilted Axis Press)
• Khairani Barokka's "The Case Against Italicizing 'Foreign' Words"
• Translation is a Mode= Translation is an Anti-neocolonial Mode by Don Mee Choi (UDP)
• A Brief Exploration of the Use of the e in the Spanish Language as a Means of Combating Sexism Regardless of the Opinions of the Academy by Ana Ojeda (tr. Kit Maude)
• Make it Make Sense by Jeremy Tiang 

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Exploring more literary works from different parts of the world.
• Delving more deeply into different literary themes in translation.
• Understanding more about the business side of publishing literary translation.
• Potentially foster a community of translators.

PRAISE FOR JENNA TANG:

“Jenna made each one of us feel valued and comfortable during class. She was a fantastic teacher, genuinely enthusiastic about the subject. Her thoughtfully prepared class discussions were directly applicable to my translation practice, and I am now a better translator because of it.”

"Jenna is a fantastic instructor! Her workshop was so engaging. She expertly mixed questions of languages, poetic, inspiration, and translation. That’s something I had been looking for a long time in a workshop. I learned new tools to write about languages. Jenna’s constructive feedback encouraged me to keep writing about languages and exploring migration in organic ways. The discussions resonated throughout my week outside the online meeting: I kept feeling engaged, researching, and writing."

"Jenna Tang is doing incredible and important work as a translator and writer. She is so generous and always opens the door for others. Her work challenges the status quo and creates a space for resonant stories and writers to find many audiences and communities across languages and borders. She helps us see what is possible in the literary world and how to find our way toward it. I can't think of anyone I'd rather learn from more!"- K-Ming Chang

“As a translator, Jenna is fundamentally a community builder. A bridge-builder on the page and within groups she crafts with sensitivity and nuance, translating not only between languages but complex identities and beliefs. Her work supports shared understanding through a profound respect for cultures and individuals.”

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

• Instructor: Jenna Tang
  
• Class Starts Thursday, May 15th, 2025.
• The class will meet weekly via Zoom (Thursdays, 7:00PM ET - 9:00PM ET).
  
• This class is limited to 10 writers.