Rewriting the Other Writer’s Writing

Join us for our next general meeting on November 20, 2021 at 1:00 PM, via Zoom

In our next general meeting, we will have two very prestigious speakers who will talk about their recent translations and the challenges and great moments of working with authors, copy editors, and publishers.

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Dr. Elaine Brooks

Every translator understands that there are layers of linguistic connections threaded on the translator’s loom. As translators we create mental maps linking systems of language and from those maps, we forge what we think are shared worlds of meaning.  Donald Davidson in his ground-breaking ideas on the notion of truth and meaning (Inquiries into Truth and Interpretations, pp. 17-36, 1984) writes about how we can “capture systematic connections between the speaker’s utterances and a common, outside world they share” (quote from Eli Dresner’s article in 2015, “Davidson’s Interpretations: The Step Not Taken”).

In her presentation, Dr. Elaine S. Brooks from the University of New Orleans will discuss the psychology of translation as each writer’s utterances, i.e., the original author, the translator, and the copyeditor, shape the translation and create not only layers of linguistic connections through editing, but also layers of interpretations that may or may not share the same world of meaning or the “outside world they share.”

Dr. Brooks is the Academic Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at University of New Orleans. Some of her areas of expertise include Medieval Spanish literature, theories on literary aesthetics and 15th-Century Cancionero Poetry. Her recent works include translations of two Costa Rican authors.

Michael Meigs

Michael Meigs has a huge fanbase in the AATIA’s literary specialty interest group (LitSIG) who all sat in amazement at the magic Michael has rocked on the translation of Doloris Dedondo’s novel Northface of the Heart. Doloris Redondo is a Spanish writer and one of the most spectacular noir fiction authors ever. She also wrote the Baztán Trilogy (not translated by Michael), which was also made into movie adaptions available on Netflix (The Invisible Guardian, the Legacay of the Bones, Offering to the Storm). In our general meeting, Michael will talk about his translation of her book Northface of the Heart.

Michael Meigs translates from French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Portuguese and Italian and was the recipient of the 2020 Lewis Galantière Award. The Lewis Galantière Award is given by ATA for a distinguished book-length literary translation from any language, except German, into English published in the United States. He also received 32nd annual translation prize from the Scandinavian-American foundation STiNA (Swedish Translators in North America).
He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Spanish literature with a minor in drama. He also earned a master’s degree from the University of Kansas in international drama (comparative literature and technical theatre studies) and retired from a life in the foreign service after spending many years abroad and after earning additional graduate degrees. Aside from translation, Michael is very passionate about theater. He established AustinLiveTheatre.com in 2008, the go-to source for live narrative theatre reviews and information in the Central Texas region.