This is the month you were waiting for all summer during the annual summer drought. Time to enjoy a veritable deluge of great translation events!
Tuesday, Nov. 1:
The annual Words Without Borders gala celebrating literature in translation and the translators who get it there. This year’s Ottaway Award will go to Barbara Epler, publisher of New Directions, presented by Hilton Als. There’ll be lots of translators in attendance. Pricey, and advance reservations required, since it’s a fundraiser. To be followed by the easier-on-the-budget Globe Trot later in the evening. Three Sixty, 10 Desbrosses Street, 6:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Also Tuesday, Nov. 1:
Ferrante Night Fever: Ferrante translator Ann Goldstein celebrates the launch of two new Ferrante titles (!) with Roxana Robinson, Dayna Tortorici, Ayana Mathis, and Michael Reynolds. More information here. My advice is to get there early. McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St., 7:00 p.m.
Also Tuesday, Nov. 1:
Launch event for Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics, featuring translators and writers Anna Moschovakis, Lucy R. McNair, Olivia C. Harrison, Omar Berrada, Robyn Creswell, Teresa Villa-Ignacio, and Thomas C. Spear. More information here. Skylight Room (Rm. 9100), CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave., 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 3:
Secrets, not Code: On Robert Walser’s Microscripts: Translationista will be speaking about Walser for the first time in a couple of years, this time in an illustrated lecture on Walser’s microscript technique and the stories he used it to tell. Registration requested. Columbia University Library Book History Colloquium. Butler Library, Rm. 523, 6:00 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 4:
Bright Magic: Translator Damion Searls reads from Alfred Döblin’s collection of stories Bright Magic and is joined for a conversation by Eric Banks. More information here. NYU Deutsches Haus, 42 Washington Mews, 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 6:
How Did Kafka Become Kafka? Kafka biographer Reiner Stach speaks with the book’s translator Shelley Frisch. More information here. 92nd St. Y, Lexington Ave. at 92nd St., 11:00 a.m.
Monday, Nov. 7:
A Conversation with Edith Grossman – Grossman the renowned translator of, for example, Don Quixote and García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, will speak with the Hon. Juan José Herrera, Consul of Spain for Cultural Affairs in New York. More information here, RSVP requested. Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities & the Arts, NAC 6/316, City College, 160 Convent Ave., 6:00 p.m.
Also Monday, Nov. 7:
Kafka: The Early Years: Kafka biographer Reiner Stach speaks with novelist Daniel Kehlmann, moderated by the book’s translator, Shelley Frisch. More information here. Goethe Institut, 30 Irving Place, 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 9:
Kafka: The Early Years: Kafka biographer Reiner Stach speaks with the book’s translator, Shelley Frisch. Reservations required, more information here. Leon Levy Center for Biography, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave., Rm. 1201 (Elebash Recital Hall), 6:30 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 11:
Is that Kafka? 99 Finds: Translator Kurt Beals speaks with Kafka biographer Reiner Stach. More information here. Deutsches Haus at NYU, 42 Washington Mews, 6:30 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 14:
Existence: A Story: Translator/Poet/Essayist David Hinton on his latest book, a mediation on the nature of reality that begins with a landscape painting by Shih-t’ao (1642-1707). More information here. Book Culture, 536 W 112th St., 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 15:
Are We Nearly There Yet? Creative Writing and the Pursuit of Social Change. Translationista speaks with Sharon Dodua Otoo, the British writer who just won the 2016 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize (yes, a prize for German-language literature) on her writing and political engagement across borders. More information here. Austrian Cultural Forum, 11 E. 52nd St., 7:30 p.m.