The Critic and Her Publics

In this final episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione series for 2025, we’ll confront a subject that the literary world likes to keep subtextual: money. The translators and publishers, who usually meet over contract negotiations, open up their books and compare bottom lines, to see who feels like they’re being short-changed, and why. Is there—or could there be—a pay structure that works for everyone? And how should the translator be compensated, when their role is still so unresolved? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, another session of practical translation: the reading and comparing of many renditions of one passage, to see how translators make their choices. But the text we’ll be examining, 1001 Nights, presents an unusual challenge. Unlike with the Proust that we discussed in the first episode, there is not one fixed source text to work with. There were many retellings of Scheherazade’s tales over the centuries, which were then written down as many different manuscripts. What, then, does it mean for a translator to “take liberties,” or to be “faithful to the text”?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, the translators discuss the fraught emotional condition of their work: the sense that not only is their work shameful and grotesque but that they are too, for daring to attempt it. Translation demands a deep and scholarly knowledge of language, which never feels sufficient. Translators are often faced with a binary of either making themselves invisible or asserting their styles. Many of them are caught between identities. You’ll hear Maureen Freely, an American who grew up in Istanbul, talk about her vexed relationship with Orhan Pamuk and Tiffany Tsao, American-born, but of Indonesian heritage, confess the shame she felt when translating Budi Darma. All of the translators in this group, for reasons of temperament and structure, seem to have a masochistic relationship to their work. But as in all cases of masochism, the pain is a kind of pleasure, too. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the first episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, we start with an exercise in practical translation: a discussion of seven different English interpretations of one, highly complicated sentence from Volume One of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Maureen Freely will speak first, followed by Daisy Rockwell, Virginia Jewiss, Jeremy Tiang, and finally Tiffany Tsao. It sounds like a lot to keep track of, but in the course of these conversations, you will get to know all of their voices very well. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yahdon Israel is a senior editor at Simon Schuster and founder of Literaryswag, a cultural movement that intersects literature and fashion to make books accessible. He brings an entrepreneurial spirit to these pursuits as the founder of a popular book club, host of a literary podcast, creative writing teacher, event producer, as well as his work in support of several prestigious literary awards.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sasha Weiss is a writer and the deputy culture editor at The New York Times Magazine. Previously she was the literary editor at The New Yorker and an editor at The New York Review of Books. _________________________________ The Critic and Her Publics Hosted by Merve Emre • Edited by Michele Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • Art by Leanne Shapton • Sponsored by Alfred A. Knopf The Critic and Her Publics is a co-production between the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, and Lit Hub.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Zakiya Dalila Harris received her MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her debut novel, The Other Black Girl, was an instant New York Times bestseller and is now a critically acclaimed Hulu Original Series. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband._________________________________The Critic and Her PublicsHosted by Merve Emre • Edited by Michele Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • Art byLeanne Shapton • Sponsored by Alfred A. KnopfThe Critic and Her Publics is a co-production between the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, and Lit Hub. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jackson Howard is an editor and writer from Los Angeles who lives in Brooklyn.He’s Senior Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and its imprints MCD and AUWA (headed by Questlove), where he acquires and edits a broad range of fiction and nonfiction. Writers he has published include Judith Butler, Brontez Purnell, Catherine Lacey, Bryan Washington, Laura van den Berg, Sarah Schulman, Jonathan Escoffery, Fernando A. Flores, Susan Straight, Imogen Binnie, Shon Faye, Henry Hoke, Thomas Grattan, Venita Blackburn, Missouri Williams, and many others. Books he has edited have won or been nominated for the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the PEN Open Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction.A longtime Pitchfork contributor, his reviews, profiles, and essays have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Cut, Rolling Stone, The Ringer, W., i-D, office, Document, and elsewhere.In 2023, he was featured in New York magazine’s Power Issue and was named one of Harper’s BAZAAR’s 36 Voices of Now and part of Town & Country’s Creative Aristocracy. In 2022, he was named a Star Watch Honoree by Publishers Weekly._________________________________The Critic and Her PublicsHosted by Merve Emre • Edited by Michele Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • Art byLeanne Shapton • Sponsored by Alfred A. KnopfThe Critic and Her Publics is a co-production between the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, and Lit Hub.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kaitlyn Greenidge is the author of Libertie and We Love You, Charlie Freeman, one of the New York Times Critics' Top 10 Books of 2016. Her writing has appeared in the Vogue, Glamour,the Wall Street Journal, Elle, Buzzfeed, Transition Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, American Short Fiction and other places. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is currently Features Director at Harper’s Bazaar as well as a contributing writer for The New York Times.Recorded October 18, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by Alfred A. KnopfThe Critic and Her Publics is a production of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, and Literary Hub.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've got some exciting news regarding the future of The Critic and Her Publics—and here to bring it to you is the latest episode of Literary Hub's The Lit Hub Podcast. If you don't know The Lit Hub Podcast, it's the in-house show at Lit Hub, hosted by podcasts editor Drew Broussard. This week features Merve Emre talking about what's next for TCAHP as well as Lit Hub's editor-in-chief Jonny Diamond on why supporting independent media is important and a raucous round-table of Lit Hub staff talking about awards season.Be sure to subscribe to The Lit Hub Podcast for more bookish fun—and to stay tuned for the return of The Critic and Her Publics in January 2025!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Carina del Valle Schorske is a writer, translator, and wannabe backup dancer. Her debut essay collection, The Other Island, is forthcoming from Riverhead Books. It was recently awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. She writes about Caribbean culture, literary politics, diasporic dramas, and the songs she can’t stop singing to herself. Her essays have been published many places including The Believer, The Cut, The Point, and the New York Times Magazine, where she is now a contributing writer. As a translator, she focuses on Puerto Rican poetry, especially the work of Marigloria Palma. Her own poetry has been featured in a variety of small journals and anthologies, and supported by fellowships from CantoMundo, MacDowell, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.Recorded October 17, 2023 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and KnopfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Doreen St. Félix has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2017. Previously, she was a culture writer at MTV News. Her writing has appeared in the Times Magazine, New York, Vogue, The Fader, and Pitchfork. St. Félix was named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” media list in 2016. In 2017, she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, and, in 2019, she won in the same category.Recorded March 26, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and KnopfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jo Livingstone is a medieval literature scholar, a critic, and the 2020 National Book Critics Circle recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. After receiving a BA in English literature from the University of Oxford and a PhD in medieval literature from New York University, Livingstone went on to write cultural criticism for The New Republic and currently manages the editorial website The Stopgap with Daniel Lavery. They are currently a visiting professor at Pratt Institute.Recorded February 20, 2024 at the Shapiro Center at Wesleyan UniversityEdited by Michele MosesMusic by Dani LencioniArt by Leanne ShaptonSponsored by the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, Lit Hub, and KnopfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.