AWP is recognizing and celebrating National Translation Month throughout the whole month of September! Translators, often unsung heroes of the literary world, hold our global community together. They bridge the pathway between not only languages, but communities and cultures. AWP acknowledges the vital role of literary advocate that translators frequently take on with their work and applauds them for doing so. In honor of National Translation Month, our staff has assembled a list of resources to celebrate the necessary role that translators play in our daily lives.

Browse our Translation Month Bookshop.org list to discover staff-curated reads!

From the Writer’s Chronicle

“Machines Made Out of Words: Translating Function & The Translator’s Function” by Tony Barnstone, October/November 2008

“Craft Elements of Multilingual Poetry in America” by Amanda Galvan Huynh, September 2021

“An Interview with Nancy Naomi Carlson” by Christina Daub, February 2021

“Do you have to be one to write about one? Writing About Others” by Ian King, September 2018

“The Grail of Origin: Translation and Originality” by Kurt Heinzelman, May/Summer 2018

"The Anatomy of the Lotus: Conversation with Translator Carolyne Wright on Translation, “Poetry, Romance, & Political Resistance in Bangladesh with an Additional Conversation with Poet Shamim Azad & Translator Manzoorul Islam” by Debrah Lechner, February 2015

“Shiki the Tanka Poet” by Barry George, February 2012

Rewatch Online Events from AWP

#AWP21 Raising the Volume, Women in Translation

#AWP21 Latin American Women Writers in Translation

#AWP22 Publishing Books in Translation: An Overview of Best Practices, Sponsored by CLMP

Online Resources

PEN America’s YouTube mini-series Women in Translation 2023, featuring: Arabic, Russian, Uyghur, Brazilian Portuguese, and Maltese, and Spanish, Tutunakú, Mandarin, German, and Japanese.