Seasoned interpreters in conference and court settings, Christina Helmerichs and Steve Mines will speak at AATIA’s September 13 member meeting.

The candidates for 2009 Board of Directors will also talk about their goals for for the association during the coming year and beyond.

Guests and visitors are welcome to come learn from the best, socialize, and network at 1 p.m. at the Austin History Center, 9th and Guadalupe.

Nominating Committee Chair Carlota Grimes has announced candidates for the 2009 Board of Directors elections. Candidates will make brief presentations at the meeting on September 13, 2008. The election will be conducted by online voting in September, and results will be announced at the November member meeting.

Grimes expressed thanks to all the candidates for their willingness to run for office. She also thanked fellow Nominating Committee members Marco Hansen and Carolina Modesto for their participation.

The candidates’ statements and photos are presented below.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Summer 2008 issue of ATA’s new online version of Source, the Literary Division newsletter, is now available.

Don’t miss Tony Beckwith’s cover-page cartoon and By the Way: My LitSIG column, plus a fascinating look at Computer Game Localization and Literary Translation by Frank Dietz.

Potential contributors to the Fall issue should email submissions to Source Editor Michele Aynesworth.

The National Endowment for the Arts announced a new round of 13 translation fellowships, one of which, in the amount of $20,000, goes to AATIA member Michele Aynesworth to support the translation from French of In So Corrupt an Age, the journal of Charles Rist.

A successful economist living in Paris, Rist (1874-1955) began keeping a personal journal in 1939, the day after Germany’s invasion of Poland. The daily entries record his reflections on the war and occupation. The journal bears witness to events of national and international importance, but also traces the more personal dealings of Rist’s family and friends. Written in the self-reflective tradition of Montaigne, the 470-page journal ends in 1945, with the author’s reaction to the Nuremberg trials.

These NEA grants will support the translation of six works of prose, including a play, and seven works of poetry. The works will be translated from nine languages including Japanese, Czech, Portuguese, and medieval Cretan Greek. The NEA also announced significant changes to the guidelines for the Literary Translation fellowships, to foster more translations of world literature into English.

"One of the most profound ways to engage citizens of different countries with each other is through literature, but most of us will never be able to read much of the world’s literature except in translation," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. "I am delighted to announce these grants and the program’s new guidelines that will expand opportunities for literary translators and help grow the translation field."

Aynesworth received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. She has also translated the novel Mad Toy by Argentine writer Roberto Arlt. She is an Associate Professor of English at Huston-Tillotson University, Retired.

Bill Marx of Public Radio International’s World Books has posted a 26-minute podcast interview with Marian Schwartz, whose retranslation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard was recently released by Yale University Press, as reported here earlier this summer. (Don’t miss the related Geo Quiz.)

The interview [taped August 13] is really interesting, touching on why people should read The White Guard in addition to The Master and Margarita, what some of the issues were with the previous translation, and, on a related note, how onomatopoeia works in the new version.

This translation also received a favorable comment in an article in The Independent.

Several professional associations are planning upcoming conferences that focus on interpreting in a medical setting. Details are available at the respective websites:

Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators (TAPIT)
September 12-14, 2008 - Nashville, Tennessee

Upper Midwest Translators and Interpreters Association (UMTIA) and National Conference on Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations
September 21-24, 2008 - Minneapolis, Minnesota

International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA)
October 10-12, 2008 - Boston, Massachusetts

Good news: The Tools for Translators workshop will take place as planned on September 6th!

More good news: We’ve extended the registration deadline to August 31st!  But space is limited, so don’t wait until then to register! 

English speakers use the name Georgia for both the Caucasus country and the U.S. state, but why?

In their native tongue, Georgians refer to themselves as the Kartveli and to their country as Sakartvelo. But the Kartveli have for many centuries been associated with George, the Roman soldier and Christian martyr.

Noreen Malone of Slate blames the British for the two Georgias in a recent column where she traces the history of these placenames.