“Poetry works best through its affirmation of humanity. And translation as an endeavour builds bridges. It builds community. It dissolves national borders.” US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze discusses translating poetry in turbulent times. At the South China Morning Post:

Kurt Beals’s new translation of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT highlights the immediacy and youthfulness of the original novel’s narration. Read more about his translation @thenation.com:

“Translation, like scholarship, is an interpretive process. You have to decide what aspect of a word or a sentence to convey.” University of Chicago PhD student Naomi Harris shares her experience translating 3000-year-old Hittite poetry into English. At UChicago News:

From us at ALTA: Happy New Year! We wish you all the best -- and hope many translations make their way to your bookshelves! -- in 2026. 🎆🎉

Was supporting literary translators one of your 2025 New Year's resolutions? It isn't too late! You can still make a tax-deductible gift in 2025 & enjoy a great number of benefits (besides the satisfaction of crossing that off your resolution list!) when you do. Make your gift here!

It’s not too late to make a tax-deductible gift to ALTA in 2025. No matter the amount of your gift, it will make a big difference in 2026 and beyond. We can only do it together. And when you give this year, you enjoy many benefits! Learn more and make your tax-deductible gift: buff.ly/KbZ9vTF

⏰ Last chance! We still have 49% to go to our goal of $20,000. If you’ve been meaning to make an end-of-year gift to ALTA, now is the time. Plus: All donations up to $20,000 will be matched! Support literary translators in 2026: Give to ALTA by the end of the day today! buff.ly/KbZ9vTF

“ALTA is different because you are welcome everywhere." Val Galitskiy, a graduate student in Boston University’s MFA in Literary Translation program, reflects on the ALTA48 conference held in November of this year. At Boston University: buff.ly/sPOCCHj

Our winter open reading period for literary translations and new plays runs through Jan 12. We welcome volumes of poetry, collections of short fiction, and completed novels in translation and submissions of finished full-length plays (60-120 min. running time). www.cmu.edu/universitypr...

“What makes Anjuman remarkable is her poetry—her ferocity and unfailing desire to continue to participate in this ancient art. How she enshrines her humanity with the poetic line.” ALTA member Diana Arterian writes about co-translating Nadia Anjuman’s SMOKE DRIFTS. At Lit Hub:

Help us meet the challenges of 2026 & beyond (+ get a number of benefits when you do!). Help us keep finding solutions - after all, it's what translators do. We find solutions. There are just a few days left: Make a (matched!) gift to ALTA & help us reach our $20,000 goal by Friday! buff.ly/KbZ9vTF

In search of a literary stocking stuffer? Check out this list of the year’s best books in (and on) translation, featuring ALTA members Kevin Gerry Dunn, Michelle Mirabella, Shelley Fairweather-Vega, and Jacqueline Leung. At WWB:

“Much greater is the force that arises from the immense / and humble act of being alive,” writes Carlos Cociña, translated by Alec Schumacher. Read these stunning poems at Latin American Literature Today: buff.ly/U7a4cZx

This winter, when you make a gift to ALTA, you won't just get the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting the organization that brings the only annual conference dedicated exclusively to the art of literary translation - you'll enjoy a great number of benefits when you do! buff.ly/3qi1aiA

“My mother didn’t kick or scream when I picked her up by the collar and threw her into the box. She was already too small to fight back.” Read these strange and surreal poems by Rena Fukazawa, translated by Rina Kikuchi, Jen Crawford, and Melinda Smith. At WWB: buff.ly/AOGIPiB

The annual recap of translated literature is here. John Self created a Top-5 list of the best translated fiction of 2025 to round out the year. Check it out at @us.theguardian.com:

Submissions are open for the WLT Student Translation Prize. If you’re a student enrolled in a translation studies program, send your prose and poems in by 1/10/26. We want to read your translations! All the details are here in the link: worldliteraturetoday.org/translation-...

Enjoy this poem from DOCUMENT SHREDDING MUSEUM by Afrizal Malna, trans. Daniel Owen, pub. World Poetry Books - winner of the 2025 National Translation Award in Poetry! Your donations now will help us continue celebrating excellence in literary translation. Make a gift today! buff.ly/3qi1aiA

As the weather gets colder, curl up under a cozy blanket and check out these bone-chilling folk horror novels in translation. At @literaryhub.bsky.social:

Translators are alchemists, conjuring meaning and beauty from one language into another. @littranslate.bsky.social’s sole purpose is to support and advocate for translators. If you can, help them help translators by making a donation. Maybe you’ll even win a virtual meeting with me . . .

Did you know? When you donate $50 or more to ALTA by December 19, you'll be entered into a raffle to win a virtual meeting to talk shop with Buzz Poole of Sandorf Passage! @buzzpoole.bsky.social @sandorfpassage.bsky.social Learn more here, and donate by December 19: buff.ly/9MCcuix

Translator from German Ross Benjamin speaks with Krys Boyd, the host of KERA’s Think, about what we miss out on by allowing A.I. to translate for us. At @think.kera.org:

Thanks to several generous ALTA members, we are excited to announce a full match for our winter fundraiser! That’s right: ✨All donations up to our goal of $20,000 will be matched.✨ We’re grateful to these members for this vote of confidence in the work ALTA does.  Give here today! buff.ly/9MCcuix

Congrats to 2025 ALTA mentee Rohee Dholakia for being nominated for the 2026 Hooghly Review Pushcart Prize for her translation of Panna Naik’s THE NEXT WEDNESDAY. See the full list of nominations on Instagram: www.instagram.com/p/DRhjBmKEtX...

Did you know? When you donate $50 or more to ALTA by December 19, you'll be entered into a raffle to win a virtual feedback round on a short literary translation with award-winning translator Heather Cleary! Learn more here, and donate by December 19: alta.app.neoncrm.com/campaigns/20...

To recap the year, here’s a list of 100 notable books published by small presses in 2025, including ALTA member Oonagh Stransky’s translation of Domenico Starnone’s THE OLD MAN BY THE SEA. At @literaryhub.bsky.social:

“Translation lives in that liminal space, in the slippage between the native and the foreign. It’s there that an openness occurs, a sovereign space that belongs to the translator..." Shangyang Fang about STUDY OF SORROW, a collection of translated Song-dynasty Ci poems. At LARB: buff.ly/ArNzgLc

Did you know? When you donate $25+ to ALTA by 12/19, you get entered into a raffle to win this year's National Translation Award winners, DOCUMENT SHREDDING MUSEUM, trans. Daniel Owen & SAND-CATCHER, trans. Barbara Romaine! Find out more about this and other giving benefits here:

“There are these rarer, powerful moments where, through a quirk of phrasing or word order, you can feel language being actively patterned by a specific body.” Kate Briggs talks about translating Hélène Bessette’s LILI IS CRYING. At BOMB Magazine: buff.ly/lXxHsqr @bombmag.bsky.social

Join me in supporting literary translators @littranslate.bsky.social this #givingtuesday alta.app.neoncrm.com/campaigns/9/...

“One language is not enough, and one place is not enough. What I do is close to juggling in a circus, in the most playful but also the most serious sense.” Translators Yasmeen Hanoosh and Mahmoud Hosny Roshdy on language and untranslatability. At ArabLit: buff.ly/YWKX5iA @arablit.bsky.social

In May, like many in the literary arts community, ALTA lost future funding from the NEA, as our conference and programming “no longer effectuate[d] agency priorities.” Donate to ALTA today, and help us reach our goal of raising $20,000 by December 19. We can only do it together!

“Translation, for me, becomes a natural progression, getting to play with two very different language systems and cultures.” Read an interview with 2026 ALTA mentor Deepa Bhasthi on her International Booker Prize-winning translation of HEART LAMP at t2ONLINE: buff.ly/Tn6cUcu

Former ALTA board member Allison M. Charette’s translation of Raharimanana’s RETURN is out with Seagull Books now! Read this “dreamlike” excerpt at Words Without Borders / @wwborders.bsky.social:

😱 Last chance! Applications for the 2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program close TODAY! Emerging translators, don't miss your chance to work 1-on-1 with an experienced translator on a translation of your choosing, at no cost to you. Apply by 11:59pm PT! alta.submittable.com/submit/

‼️ Applications for the 2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program close TOMORROW! Emerging translators, don't miss your chance to work 1-on-1 with an experienced translator on a translation of your choosing, at no cost to you. Apply by 11:59pm PT tomorrow! alta.submittable.com/submit/

⏱️ Emerging translators! Time's running out: Don't miss your chance to work 1-on-1 with a translation mentor next year. Apply to the 2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program! 13 mentorships are available (at no cost to the emerging translator). Apply by this Sunday, 11/30: buff.ly/EQW9BRV

Feel like traveling, but can’t find the time in your schedule? Check out these translations, including titles by ALTA members Nancy Naomi Carlson, Heather Hennes, and Shelley Fairweather-Vega, and let yourself be transported around the world. At @literaryhub.bsky.social:

📣 Emerging translators! Don't miss your chance to work 1-on-1 with a translation mentor next year: Apply to the 2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program! 13 mentorships are available (at no cost to the emerging translator!). Time is running out: Apply by this Sunday, 11/30: buff.ly/EQW9BRV

“It’s an investigation that depends on careful attention to details, great and small.” Jack Rockwell discusses time and attention to detail in Solvej Balle’s ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME (BOOK III), translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell. At @wwborders.bsky.social:

“I’ll be learning Polish for the rest of my life. I can’t say I’ve mastered it, but the same goes for English – I’ll be learning that forever too.” ALTA member Antonia Lloyd-Jones talks to Agnes Dudek at CULTURE.PL about translating from Polish: culture.pl/en/article/u...

📣 Emerging translators! Don't miss your chance to work one-on-one with a translation mentor next year: Apply to the 2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program! There are 13 mentorships available (at no cost to the emerging translator!). But time is running out: Apply by 11/30: buff.ly/EQW9BRV

Literary translators! Our publisher, @twolinespress.com, is currently open for submissions for animal stories in translation (from any language) & the Stevns Translation Prize (for Vietnamese translators). As always, no submissions fees. For more info visit: www.catranslation.org/books/submit...

ICYMI: The 2025 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize award ceremony will be held tonight! The shortlist features ALTA members Kevin Dunn, Julia Sanches, and Lisa Dillman:

🎉 Huge congratulations to ALTA member Robin Myers, whose translation from Spanish of WE ARE GREEN AND TREMBLING by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, published by New Directions, has won the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature! @ndbooks.bsky.social

ALTA is delighted to have received a $20,000 grant from the Poetry Foundation! We're honored to be among 52 nonprofits receiving grants. This vital support will provide essential resources so we can continue to serve as a vital resource for poet-translators & the wider community.

Check out these poems from Prosthesis Factory—”funny, moving, lewd, vicious, sweet, defiant, and always attentive”—from Yan Satunovsky, translated from the Russian by ALTA member Ainsley Morse and Philip L. Redko: www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/prost...

Still reeling from basking in the sun in Tucson immediately followed by first sznl snow in Chicago! So happy to have the chance to read my translation excerpt at @littranslate.bsky.social + @saltatchicago.bsky.social Fav day had to be workshop with ustaad @jasongrunebaum.bsky.social at UChicago :)

Pittsburgh friends! Make your way to Stay Gold Books on November 19 to hear ALTA members Michelle Mirabella and Will Morningstar discuss their respective debut translations, THE CRACKS WE BEAR and ALL THAT DIES IN APRIL: www.staygoldbooks.com/events

If you’re looking for more translated titles to add to your TBR, look no further! Check out this selection of exciting new releases, compiled by Tobias Carroll at Words Without Borders: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...