INTERNATIONAL TRANSLATION DAY, SEPTEMBER 30, CELEBRATES WORLD LITERATURE--AND ITS TRANSLATORS
Yale University Press is pleased to join with all those who celebrate International Translation Day on September 30, to recognize the vital role that translators play in cross-cultural understanding and the peaceful exchange of ideas.
Book publishers around the world mark this day to salute, in particular, translators of literature, who enable great works of literary art to reach readers of other languages, who might not have access to these works in their original form.
Among these publishers is Yale University Press and its series The Margellos World Republic of Letters, named for Cecile and Theodore Margellos. In the sixteen years since its inception, this series of books has brought to the English-speaking world the work of dozens of leading literary artists and thinkers from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Margellos titles celebrate the spirit of International Translation Day all year round as they stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.
A fundamental concept of the Margellos mission was a desire to honor the essential work of translators, and the series has always placed the translator's name on the cover of every book.
The theme for International Translation Day 2023 is "Translation unveils the many faces of humanity." Among "the many faces and stories made visible through translation" are those reflected in two new works by Ukraine's celebrated poet and novelist Serhiy Zhadan—Sky Above Kharkiv, a firsthand account of the ongoing war, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, and How Fire Descends, a collection of poems translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps. The winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, Annie Ernaux, reflects a varied array of faces in a very different set of circumstances in Look at the Lights, My Love, translated by Alison L. Strayer.
International Translation Day started with a resolution adopted in the United Nations General Assembly on May 24, 2017. Every September 30 is dedicated to honoring the role of translation professionals because they promote peace and friendship across nations.
