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Translators Aloud is a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, for both published and unpublished works.

We provide a space for translators to read their own work and a positive platform for sharing great literature, read aloud by the translators themselves.

We showcase the world’s best new and classic books, poetry, plays, and short stories, presented by the talented people who translate them.


Recent Readings

Samantha Pious reads from CACTUS FLOWERS: SELECTED POEMS, Judith Teixeira (Headmistress Press, 2025)

15 hours ago

Captured in the innocent voice of a young boy, Mohammed Khadeer Babu’s Chaplinesque-style of portraying misery through humour shines a sweeping light on Muslim lives in coastal Andhra. Populated with strong women, cheeky scamps, virtuous dawdlers and scrupulous teachers, his witty storytelling in the Nellore dialect is a riveting portrayal of the daily struggles of adapting to a majoritarian world in small-town India. Belying the nostalgic memories of childhood are scathing observations of the education system, child labour, social barriers, and casteist attitudes. Yet, the stories also resound with a clear message of friendship, especially among Hindus and Muslims, making this book essential reading in today’s fraught times, to remind ourselves of our inherited legacy of communal harmony—which makes it possible for the young narrator to say, ‘I’ve never regretted even once that I didn’t learn Urdu or that I don’t know Arabic, or that I have never even touched the Quran in these languages, only in Telugu.’ D.V. Subhashri’s unique translation, which retains all the richness of the original, quaint expressions and sounds et al, brings a smile to our faces, while showing us why the book made Khadeer Babu a household name in the Telugu community. This first English translation of his work opens up a new world for us. ‘Here is a writer with the courage to look into the well of truth and to proclaim fearlessly what he finds there: inherited ideas, prejudices and superstitions and eye-wateringly realistic characters [that] stride across the page. The translator, powered by three language pools, splashes her way confidently to invent a language for the reader.’—Mini Krishnan, editorial board member of the Murty Classical Library of India 'To discover a new voice and a new translator and to be introduced to a new literary village is an embarrassment of riches. This is a book to savour and keep.' - Jerry Pinto, Indian poet and novelist and winner of Windham-Campbell Prize BUY THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9363364658 Translator bio D V Subhashri is a multilingual writer and translator based in Bangalore. Her stories and translations have appeared in various online magazines and her children’s books have won awards in Telugu and English. She is currently translating two books from Telugu and Kannada. Reach out at shri2777atgmail. Author bio Mohammed Khadeer Babu is a senior journalist and award-winning writer in Telugu with short stories, anthologies, non-fiction books and movies to his credit. A two-time Katha awardee, his stories have won various prizes at the state and national level and earned him the Govt of AP Achievement Award in 2023.

Captured in the innocent voice of a young boy, Mohammed Khadeer Babu’s Chaplinesque-style of portraying misery through humour shines a sweeping light on Muslim lives in coastal Andhra. Populated with strong women, cheeky scamps, virtuous dawdlers and scrupulous teachers, his witty storytelling in the Nellore dialect is a riveting portrayal of the daily struggles of adapting to a majoritarian world in small-town India. Belying the nostalgic memories of childhood are scathing observations of the education system, child labour, social barriers, and casteist attitudes. Yet, the stories also resound with a clear message of friendship, especially among Hindus and Muslims, making this book essential reading in today’s fraught times, to remind ourselves of our inherited legacy of communal harmony—which makes it possible for the young narrator to say, ‘I’ve never regretted even once that I didn’t learn Urdu or that I don’t know Arabic, or that I have never even touched the Quran in these languages, only in Telugu.’

D.V. Subhashri’s unique translation, which retains all the richness of the original, quaint expressions and sounds et al, brings a smile to our faces, while showing us why the book made Khadeer Babu a household name in the Telugu community. This first English translation of his work opens up a new world for us.

‘Here is a writer with the courage to look into the well of truth and to proclaim fearlessly what he finds there: inherited ideas, prejudices and superstitions and eye-wateringly realistic characters [that] stride across the page. The translator, powered by three language pools, splashes her way confidently to invent a language for the reader.’—Mini Krishnan, editorial board member of the Murty Classical Library of India

'To discover a new voice and a new translator and to be introduced to a new literary village is an embarrassment of riches. This is a book to savour and keep.' - Jerry Pinto, Indian poet and novelist and winner of Windham-Campbell Prize

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9363364658

Translator bio
D V Subhashri is a multilingual writer and translator based in Bangalore. Her stories and translations have appeared in various online magazines and her children’s books have won awards in Telugu and English. She is currently translating two books from Telugu and Kannada. Reach out at shri2777atgmail.

Author bio
Mohammed Khadeer Babu is a senior journalist and award-winning writer in Telugu with short stories, anthologies, non-fiction books and movies to his credit. A two-time Katha awardee, his stories have won various prizes at the state and national level and earned him the Govt of AP Achievement Award in 2023.

YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3LlRtMXNrd0QyZHJR

D V Subhashri reads Mohammed Khadeer Babu's THAT'S A FIRE ANT RIGHT THERE (Speaking Tiger Books)

10 Oct, 2025 6:08 pm

Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame – but even she can’t control how they behave. Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years. Translator bio Ian Giles is an Edinburgh-based translator working from Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish into English. He has more than 35 published translations to his name, ranging from bestselling fiction to complex academic and cultural texts. Recent publications include high-profile translations of authors such as Camilla Läckberg and David Lagercrantz, as well as the international bestseller Bloody Awful in Different Ways by Andrev Walden. Ian is the current Chair of the Translators Association and a former Chair of the Swedish-English Literary Translators’ Association. Notes on translating the work: https://gilestranslation.com/category/baidw/ Author bio Andrev Walden is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and columnist. In 2017, he was nominated for the Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism, praised for his ability to ‘find the every-day drama in the big questions’, and to make us ‘laugh and see the world, the family and ourselves in a new and slightly wiser light’. He lives in Stockholm. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is his first novel. Video greeting from the author: https://youtu.be/E_UzIDJhcCg?si=NlHmqMozT3J2-BAd Press quotes: But the coup of the book is its take on coming of age… It tells you things about growing up that you didn’t realise were true, not until Walden put them into words. […] Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like. George Cochrane, Daily Telegraph, 26/07/25 (archived version here: https://archive.md/x4Vt4) The writing remains so sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed that by this point I was willing to follow Andrev/Andrev pretty much anywhere. Rebecca Wait, The Guardian, 04/08/25 (online here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/04/bloody-awful-in-different-ways-by-andrev-walden-review-darkly-funny-swedish-autofiction) Links to buy: Print: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/2434/9780241720288 or order from any bookshop with ISBN 9780241720288 Audio: https://linkto.xigxag.co.uk/links/5V22

Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame – but even she can’t control how they behave.

Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.

Translator bio
Ian Giles is an Edinburgh-based translator working from Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish into English. He has more than 35 published translations to his name, ranging from bestselling fiction to complex academic and cultural texts. Recent publications include high-profile translations of authors such as Camilla Läckberg and David Lagercrantz, as well as the international bestseller Bloody Awful in Different Ways by Andrev Walden. Ian is the current Chair of the Translators Association and a former Chair of the Swedish-English Literary Translators’ Association.

Notes on translating the work: https://gilestranslation.com/category/baidw/

Author bio
Andrev Walden is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and columnist. In 2017, he was nominated for the Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism, praised for his ability to ‘find the every-day drama in the big questions’, and to make us ‘laugh and see the world, the family and ourselves in a new and slightly wiser light’. He lives in Stockholm. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is his first novel.

Video greeting from the author: https://youtu.be/E_UzIDJhcCg?si=NlHmqMozT3J2-BAd

Press quotes:

But the coup of the book is its take on coming of age… It tells you things about growing up that you didn’t realise were true, not until Walden put them into words. […] Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like.

George Cochrane, Daily Telegraph, 26/07/25 (archived version here: https://archive.md/x4Vt4)

The writing remains so sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed that by this point I was willing to follow Andrev/Andrev pretty much anywhere.

Rebecca Wait, The Guardian, 04/08/25 (online here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/04/bloody-awful-in-different-ways-by-andrev-walden-review-darkly-funny-swedish-autofiction)

Links to buy:
Print: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/2434/9780241720288 or order from any bookshop with ISBN 9780241720288
Audio: https://linkto.xigxag.co.uk/links/5V22

YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3LnJ1d29wN3QwZE1F

Ian Giles reads from Andrev Walden’s BLOODY AWFUL IN DIFFERENT WAYS (Fig Tree, 2025)

9 Oct, 2025 2:01 pm



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