Back from MLA and Goodbye to 2009

Sorry that things have been a bit quiet around here. A couple days after Christmas I drove down to Philadelphia for this year’s Modern Language Association Convention, which had a special focus on Translation. (Jen Howard wrote a great summary piece about this for the Chronicle of Higher Education that’s worth checking out.)

There were a lot of interesting people attending this year (translators make all conferences more exciting—they’re just such passionate people), and a lot of great panels, events, etc., etc. One personal highlight was having the Open Letter/Univ. of Rochester annual party basically shut down by the security at the Ritz-Carlton. Yes, we rocked it that hard. I’m sure there are stories out there of parties from years past (feel free to flood the comments section), but in my short time of going to MLA, I’ve never heard of anything quite like that . . .

But on a less drunken and more orderly note, the real highlight was the series of interviews Erica Mena and I did for the forthcoming Reading the World podcast series. We still have a few things to record, and all the editing has to be done, but the goal is to start releasing these at the end of January/beginning of February. I’ll post more information as it becomes available, but damn, based on our conversations with Suzanne Jill Levine, Larry Venuti, Bill Johnston, and Susan Harris, I think these are going to be incredible. (Yes, I know I’m biased.) Each episode (with an exception or two) has a short reading and a long discussion on practical and theoretical translation issues. If you’re a fan of this blog, I can guarantee that you’ll love these conversations . . .

Anyway, next week we’ll be back full time. In addition to general posts and more entries in the Making the Translator Visible series, we’ll be running a review of Unai Elorriaga’s Plants Don’t Drink Coffee on Monday, and on Tuesday we’ll be announcing the 25-title fiction longlist for the 2010 Best Translated Book Award . . .