I'm attentive to the author’s choices of register, syntax, and punctuation, the rhythm of the writing, the feelings it arouse. I follow the author’s cues, finding them at the surface level and in deeper layers of meaning that I can discern through the very close reading that translation requires. I now realize, however, that I can be successful in recreating the original text in the author's style overall and still insert too much of my own style in my translations.

Happy New Year! In 2024, I saw a decade-long dream come true: the publication of a book-length translation of mine. My translation of The...

Marina Sofia grew up in Romania and lives in England. Marina translates literary fiction and crime novels from Romanian and German into...

I am thrilled to announce that, as part of the Literary Translation Award I have received from Sundial House, my translation of Brazilian...

In the summer of 2023, writer and translator Yilin Wang took to then-Twitter to demand that the British Museum credit her and pay her for...

This has been an eventful year for Brazilian literature in English translation. A classic of Brazilian literature received a new English...

Ilze Duarte writes about Literatura de Cordel, or Literature on a String, a traditional folk art typical of the northeast of Brazil.

In the literary world, August is Women In Translation Month. To celebrate it, I offer my recommendations of works by Brazilian women in...

As an English Language and Literature major at Universidade de São Paulo, I took courses in Portuguese- and English-language literature....

Literary translators have often described their work and roles as professionals through metaphors. These are highly individualized...

In a previous post (11/04/22), I bemoaned the difficulties Brazilian authors experience in having their books published and promoted in...

This is an updated version of my original post, in which I had used the term "false cognates." I had to reconsider my use of the term...

I have met many Brazilians who claim with pride that the Portuguese word saudade doesn't exist in any other language. They imply saudade...

I was born and raised in Brazil. My great-grandparents were Portuguese and Italian immigrants, and I grew up speaking Portuguese and...

If you are a translator, you are probably familiar with the Italian play on words "traduttore/traditore," or translator/traitor. Clichés...

In the past few years, important works of Brazilian literature have appeared in English translation for the first time or in a new...

In my previous post, I wrote about a few works by Brazilian writers I started reading in my youth. In this post I write about Mário de...

I went to public schools in São Paulo, Brazil from first grade to university. I didn't get a good education in science or history, but I...

I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil in a monolingual household. I fell in love with English sometime in middle school, where...

Well, maybe not all things translation. I am a Portuguese-to-English literary translator, and that is the type of translation I will be...