Three contributors to Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation, published by Tilted Axis this summer, join a panel led by Catherine Taylor. With a diversity of language backgrounds, translation experience, and literary interests, this explorative and ambitious panel discussion sets the tone for OK Translator.
The panel includes:
Kavita Bhanot, co-editor of Violent Phenomena, who has directed an international literature festival in India and helped set up the country’s first literary agency; she is the editor of the short story collection Too Asian, Not Asian Enough.
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, a writer and editor based in London, with essays and reviews published in the Independent, Wasafiri, the Express Tribune and elsewhere, whose debut novel is published by Picador in 2023.
Nariman Youssef, a Cairo-born, London-based literary translator, who manages a translation team at the British Library; her literary translations include Inaam Kachachi’s The American Granddaughter, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Arabic Booker Prize.
Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation brings together the voices of twenty-four writers and translators to share their ideas about translation and its connection to the history of colonial violence. The collection is published by Tilted Axis, a leading publisher of translated literature, and supported by the National Centre for Writing, Arts Council England and the Jan Michalski Foundation as part of Visible Communities, a National Centre for Writing project.
OK Translator, on the first Monday of each month starting in September, is a series of discussions with translators and writers on the craft and politics of translation, hosted by writer and critic Catherine Taylor.
Catherine Taylor was deputy director of English PEN, where in 2015 she commissioned and edited the book Life From Elsewhere: Journeys in World Literature to commemorate ten years of English PEN's Writers in Translation programme. She is a co-founder of the literary quarterly Brixton Review of Books. Catherine's memoir The Stirrings will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2023.
The panel discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A. Doors will open from 6:45pm.
A season ticket for the first three OK Translator events is available here.
Tickets: £8 General Admission
Venue: The Auditorium (Level 6) at Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road*
*Please note that the Auditorium at Foyles is fully accessible from the Ground floor lifts.
Author Images: Kavita Bhanot by Sailesh Vadher, Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi by Andrew Mason, Nariman Youssef by Maryam Abrishami