Mara Faye Lethem has received numerous international awards for her translations of contemporary Catalan authors, including the inaugural 2022 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award for Max Besora’s The Adventures and Misadventures of Joan Orpí and the 2022 Joan Baptiste Cendrós International Prize for her contributions to Catalan literature. Her translation of Irene Solà’s When I Sing, Mountains Dance was shortlisted for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Barrios Book in Translation Prize, and is currently longlisted for the 2023 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize. In addition to many novels, she has translated shorter works that have appeared in The Guardian, Best American Non-Required Reading 2010, Granta, The Paris Review, Tin House, A Public Space, McSweeney’s and more. She’s also the author of the novel, A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small. In this conversation, she discusses with Tanya how became a literary translator, the different ways people approach the task, the particular challenges of the translator’s job and the lessons they hold for all creative endeavors.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy, Author Steve Phillips: How We Win the Civil War, Poet-Playwright-Essayist Allison Luterman: Where My Hope Is, and Writer-Editor Carol Lloyd: Creating a Life Worth LIving.