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Translators Aloud is a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, for both published and unpublished works.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
This is a grief memoir, a love song: a stunningly intimate novel about the end of a mother’s life told though the eyes of her daughter, and about the lacerating emptiness of that absence. It is about how for the daughter, a “prisoner to words”, the act of writing is her only means of tackling a subject of this magnitude. In the words of the narrator, these are “pages I write slowly, simmering away between long valleys of silence, with the only desire being, perhaps, to remember that voice.” This is a story of mourning, of intense bonds, and above all, a moving tribute to a mother’s love. *** “A remarkable novel, rooted in the elusive evocation of the past without ever drowning in the sadness of loss... On the contrary, it leaves the reader with the feeling that whatever is lost does not vanish altogether but is a place that ruminates vaguely and abstractly in the least visited recesses of the mind. There is a way to that place, and that way is fiction.” Debret Viana, Página 12 “A Mother’s Voice deals with a sensitive subject matter: the history, the progressive deterioration and, finally, the pain of the absence of her mother, Rosita. A text that makes use of the devices of fiction and manages to get to the core of a pain as real and lacerating as the loss of a loved one.” Monica Lopez Ocon, Tiempo Argentino “In this intimate and intimate novel, everything is expressed with an exquisite cadence, with a prose that caresses and almost whispers, so characteristic of Silvia Arazi’s literature. As if she were singing an a cappella song with her delicate voice. Because it is also about the voice. To hear that voice, to listen to it, to make sure it is not lost forever, to treasure it.” Silvia Renee Surer, Perfil Newspaper “An intimate and poetic story that seeks to reconstruct the family memory and includes intense reflections on writing, the human voice and its power to reveal our most hidden thoughts.” Rocío Ibarlucía, La Capital Newspaper “One of the greatest new Latin American storytellers.” - Augusto Roa Bastos *** This excerpt is published by the online literary journal Words without Borders: ttps://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-12/a-mothers-voice-silvia-arazi-charlotte-coombe/ The translation sample was produced with the support of Translation House Looren in Switzerland. Read the full sample on the translator's website: https://www.cmctranslations.com/samples *** Author bio Silvia Arazi (Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a novelist, short story writer, poet, actress and singer. She has acted in many plays, films, comedies, musicals and television programmes. As a writer, she formed part of the Abelardo Castillo workshop for several years. She was awarded the 1998 Premio Julio Cortázar de Narrativa Breve in Spain for her short stories Que temprano anochece. Her novel La maestra de canto was translated into German and Dutch and it was adapted into cinema by Ariel Broitman, in 2013. She has published two poetry books: Claudine y la casa de piedra y La medianera, una novelita haiku (Second Prize of Argentina’s National Endowment for the Arts) and La familia Cubierto, poems for children. Her most recent novels are El niño de pocas palabras and La separación. She lives in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and in Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay). Twitter: @silvia_arazi \\ https://www.facebook.com/silvia.arazi Translator bio Charlotte Coombe is a British literary translator working from French and Spanish into English. She was shortlisted for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize 2023 for her co-translation, with Isabel Adey, of December Breeze by Marvel Moreno. In 2022 she won the Oran Robert Perry Burke Award for her translation of Antonio Diaz Oliva’s short story ‘Mrs Gonçalves and the Lives of Others’, and was shortlisted for the Valle Inclán Translation Prize 2019 for her translation of Fish Soup by Margarita García Robayo. Her other book-length translations include The Seaweed Revolution by Vincent Doumeizel, Holiday Heart by Margarita García Robayo, The President's Room by Ricardo Romero, The Imagined Land by Eduardo Berti, and Khomeini, Sade and Me by Abnousse Shalmani. Her translations have appeared in online and print publications such as Asymptote, Latin American Literature Today, Words without Borders, World Literature Today, Modern Poetry in Translation and The Southern Review. In 2020, she co-founded the YouTube channel Translators Aloud, shining the spotlight on literary translators reading from their work. She is currently translating the novel Far by Rosa Ribas, forthcoming from Foundry Editions in 2024. Twitter: @cmctranslations Insta: @anywhereperson

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YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3Lk4wdzB6VjM1N3l3

Charlotte Coombe reads from Silvia Arazi's A MOTHER'S VOICE (seeking a publisher)

5 hours ago

Charlotte Gneuß’s literary thriller is set in the former East Germany, in the Dresden suburb of Gittersee – a gripping debut from a new talent on the German literary scene. The novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old Karin Köhler’s recruitment as a Stasi informer, following the defection of her boyfriend Paul to the West. Gneuß brings to life an oppressive regime while showing that the people who lived under it still had agency. The book explores Karin’s life as a rebellious teenager with more than her fair share of adult responsibility. The tension and lack of trust between the characters is thrillingly developed throughout Gittersee, and combines with Gneuß’s sparkling prose to make for a breathtaking read. Author bio Charlotte Gneuss was born in Ludwigsburg in 1992, and studied social work in Dresden, creative writing in Leipzig and writing for the stage in Berlin. She has published her work in literary magazines, is a guest writer for Zeit Online, and has been invited to literary workshops by the Jürgen Ponto Foundation and the Kölner Schmiede. She is also the winner of the Leonhard Frank Scholarship for New Drama and the editor of the anthology Glückwunsch [Congratulations], published by Hanser Berlin. Translator bio Lucy Jones German at the University of East Anglia with W.G. Sebald. She translates fiction from German, including works by Brigitte Reimann, Anke Stelling, Theresia Enzensberger, and Silke Scheuermann, for a variety of international publishers. She is the founder of Transfiction, a translators’ collective based in Berlin where she also lives. She has had her work published in SAND, Pigeon Papers NYC, Litro, and 3:AM Magazine. For rights info contact: foreignrights@fischerverlage.de **FUNDING FOR ENGLISH TRANSLATION GUARANTEED FROM NEW BOOKS IN GERMAN**: https://www.new-books-in-german.com/translation-funding/

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YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3LlliRjl3bHRZV2tZ

Lucy Jones reads from Charlotte Gneuss's GITTERSEE (seeking a publisher)

1 Dec, 2023 7:00 pm

Maike Wetzel’s second novel is based on the author’s own experience and focuses on her husband’s sudden death in a boating accident. Told from the point of view of the bereaved wife and mother of two young children, it replays the afternoon on which he died, and reflects also on her experience of grief and widowhood, interspersed with memories of their life together. Author Daniel Kehlmann describes it as “the spiritual and literary examination of a terrible misfortune”. The language, in Wetzel’s original German, is sparse and raw, and the novel paints an honest picture of the emotional journey that unfolds as a result of the tragic accident. Author bio Maike Wetzel is based in Berlin, and works as a writer, playwright and screenwriter. She is the author of three collections of short stories and two novels; PROLL! by Adrian Figueroa, based on a screenplay by Wetzel, won the German Short Film Award. Previous works in English translation include the collection Long Days (Comma Press) and Elly (Scribe). Website: maikewetzel.de Twitter: @MaikeWetzel Instagram: maikewetzel Translator bio Lyn Marven is a translator from German, and a Reader in Contemporary German Literature and Translation at the University of Liverpool. Her translations include Long Days (Comma Press) and Elly (Scribe), both by Maike Wetzel, as well as the anthology Berlin Tales (OUP), and works by Larissa Boehning, most recently the short story ‘Mother’s MacGuffin’ in the collection All Walls Collapse (Comma Press). Website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/languages-cultures-and-film/staff/lyn-marven/ Twitter: @lynmarven Instagram: lynmarven For rights info contact: Marie Jansen at Schöffling & Co. **FUNDING FOR ENGLISH TRANSLATION GUARANTEED FROM NEW BOOKS IN GERMAN**: https://www.new-books-in-german.com/translation-funding/

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YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3LkFxTFBqekRpbDhJ

Lyn Marven reads from Maike Wetzel’s FLOATING BRIDGES (seeking a publisher)

1 Dec, 2023 3:00 pm

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