Where to Find Me
Festivals & Readings
“Stories Will Salvage the Future”: An Event with Mia Couto at the CUNY Graduate Center | December 3, 2021, 11:30 am ET: One of the most recognized voices from Africa, novelist and poet Mia Couto is the author of numerous acclaimed novels from Terra sonámbula (1992) to As areias do imperador (Trilogy, 2015-2017). Amongst many other prizes, he has received the Prémio Camões (2013), the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2014), the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature (2020) and the Prix Albert Bernard (2021). In 2015 he was finalist for the International Booker Prize. Zoom link to conversation.
Past Events
Book Fairs/Editor Fellowships
2019 Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair) Fellowship Programme | October 5–20, 2019: I’m pleased to announced I’ve been selected for the highly competitive Frankfurt Book Fair Fellowship Programme this year. For two weeks in October, I’ll be visiting with editors, publishers, arts funders, writers, and other publishing professionals in Frankfurt, Zurich, and Berlin. Then, you can catch me at the book fair itself from October 14 to 20. More information.
Literary Festivals
RONDA – Leiria Poetry Festival | March 12, 2020: I’m happy to be speaking with poets Nathalie Handal and Enrique Villasis at this international poetry festival, an initiative involving UNESCO, the Fundação José Saramago, the Institut Français, Metropolis Blue, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, and Words Without Borders. Other guests include: Lebogang Mashile,, Tyehimba Jess, Arthur Sze, Tara Bergin, Will Harris, Ruth Lillegraven, Dwayne Betts, Gilles Lipovetsky, Jack Hirschmanand. This festival will be virtual; watch this space for a link.
Queen’s College, Oxford, International Book Club | March 10, 2020 at 8 pm GMT: The kind people at the Queen’s College, Oxford, have invited me to speak about my translation of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s That Hair (Tin House 2020), currently a finalist for the 2021 PEN Translation Prize.
2019 Brooklyn Book Festival | September 22, 2018, 11 am | “The Streets Are Burning: Crackdowns and Breakdowns”: How quickly the world we know can crumble. In Karina Sainz Borgo‘s It Would be Night in Caracas, one woman fights to survive as tear gas fills the streets of Venezuela’s capital. In the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the boys of Geovani Martins‘ debut story collection, The Sun on My Head, live in the shadow of police, poverty, and violence. And in ’68, Paco Ignacio Taibo II gives a harrowing firsthand account of the night two hundred students were shot dead in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Square. Moderated by Eric M.B. Becker, Words Without Borders. Location and other information here.
July 26, 2019 at 8 pm | Us & Them: A Writer/Translator Reading: A Reading with Pulitzer Prize-winner Gregory Pardlo, Eric M. B. Becker, Esther Kim, and Kaitlin Rees: I’ll be reading from my forthcoming translation of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s That Hair, due out Winter 2019/2020 from Tin House Books. More info here.
November 16 and 17, 2018 | Inaugural Pessoa International Literary Festival
I am thrilled to announce that, in yet another collaboration with Mirna Queiroz, I’m co-curating the inaugural Pessoa International Literary Festival, which brings writers from around the Portuguese-speaking world into conversation with American literary figures. We’re partnering with the Columbia University School of the Arts and local bookstores. Confirmed writers and guests include: John Keene, Paul Beatty, Rivka Galchen, Leslie Jamison, Andy Tepper, Carol Rodrigues, Alexandre Vidal Porto, Ismar Tirelli Neto, Isabel Lucas, Roberto Taddei, Susan Bernofsky, and Estévão Azevedo. Stay tuned for more updates soon at pessoa-festival.com.
2018 Brooklyn Book Festival | Multiple Events
September 16, 2018, 4 pm | Brooklyn Book Festival, “Truths and Fictions”: In the works of Javier Cercas (The Impostor), Neel Muckherjee (A State of Freedom), and Marina Perezagua (The Story of H), the stories we craft—and the histories we cover-up or expose—flirt across borders of truth and fiction. Whether it’s the deceptions of an alleged Holocaust survivor in Spain, the underclass’ thwarted dreams of liberation in India, or the fallibility of memory in the dark shadow of Hiroshima—these authors explore depths of individual delusion and historical reality. One of Lit Hub’s 8 Events Not to Miss!
Javier Cercas, “The Impostor”
Neel Muckherjee, “A State of Freedom”
Marina Perezagua, “The Story of H”
Moderated by Words without Borders Editor Eric M. B. Becker
September 11, 2018, 7:30 pm | Brooklyn Book Festival Bookends Event: Beatriz Bracher and Adam Morris with Eric M. B. Becker, Greenlight Bookstore. Beatriz Bracher’s novel I Didn’t Talk represents the English-language debut of a master stylist: a compassionate but relentless novel about the long, dark harvest of Brazil’s totalitarian rule. As a professor prepares to retire from São Paulo to the countryside, it isn’t the urban violence he’s fleeing: what he fears most is the violence of his memory. Arrested and tortured by Brazil’s military regime in 1970, along with a close friend, he was eventually released, while his friend was killed. No one is certain that he didn’t turn traitor. I didn’t talk, he tells himself, yet as Bracher honors his endless pain, what burns this tour de force so indelibly in the reader’s mind is the intensely controlled voice. Along with her English-language translator Adam Morris, Bracher discusses her book and her country’s history with Eric Becker, editor of Words Without Borders, followed by a wine reception.
April 18, 2018 | PEN World Voices Festival, “Beyond Borges: Argentina’s Unsung Literary Greats”: I’ll be moderating this panel with writer Sergio Chejfec, translators Esther Allen, Heather Cleary, and Charlotte Whittle, and New York Review Books editor Edwin Frank at Book Culture in Long Island City. Tickets—free—here.
July 6–9, 2017: Festival de Literatura-Mundo do Sal. I’ll be taking part in two events as part of the Festival de Literatura-Mundo do Sal in Cabo Verde at the invitation of curator and Portuguese writer José Luis Peixoto. More information here.
May 2, 2017: PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL, “AQUARIUS” SCREENING: I’ll be joined by Lucrecia Zappi, Elissa Schappell, and DW Gibson to discuss the Kleber Mendonça Filho film starring Sonia Braga.
June 28, 2016: FLIP Bookend Event: I had the privilege of presenting my translations of poetry by Alice Sant’anna, together with Alice, at a Universidade Federal Fluminense event one day before the official opening of FLIP (Paraty International Literary Festival).
Radio Shows
Literary South’s New Season on Translation | April 28, 2021 at 8 pm HTM on London’s Resonance 104.4 FM: I’ll have the honor of speaking with Silvia Rothlisberger of the Guardian and minor literature[s] on her radio program “Literary South,” focused on translation this season. We’ll be discussing Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s That Hair, literary translation from the Portuguese (and otherwise), and editing international literary journals, among other topics.
Editor Fellowships
April 23-29, 2017: TyPA Semana de Editores, Buenos Aires. I’ll be in Buenos Aires this April during the Buenos Aires Book Fair.
Words without Borders Events
December 14, 2015 7 pm The Conspiracists: Words without Borders December Issue Launch with Naivo and Translator Allison M. Charette at Albertine. Join December issue contributors Naivo and Allison Charette as they read from Charette’s translation of Naivo’s work and discuss the translation of Beyond the Rice Fields, the first novel from Madagascar ever translated into English, followed by a discussion of Naivo’s work moderated by WWB Editor Eric M. B. Becker.
September 8, 2015: Geography of the Peruvian Imagination: September 2015 Issue Launch. Join us as we launch the September issue of Words without Borders, focused on contemporary Peruvian literature. Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-winner Santiago Roncagliolo and Premio Las Américas winner Claudia Salazar Jiménez will read from their work in Spanish, followed by readings in English and a Q&A with Words without Borders editor Eric M. B. Becker.
Other Events
September 29, 2018 | New York University/Nida School of Translation Studies Annual Translation Conference, “Publishing Literary Translation”: I’ll be joining Daniel Shapiro, Michael Wise, Ehren Abbott, and Juan Mila to talk about publishing literary translations as part of this brilliant two-day conference.
April 13, 2018 | McNally Jackson, “Her Mother’s Mother’s Mother and Her Daughters: Maria José Silveira in conversation with Eric M. B. Becker”: Maria José Silveira and I will be discussing her novel from Open Letter Books (translation mine) at the fantastic McNally Jackson Bookstore. More information here.
April 5, 2018 | Yale University, “Her Mother’s Mother’s Mother and Her Daughters”: I’ll be joining Maria José Silveira at Yale University to talk about our book that covers 500 years of Brazilian history. More information here.
November 10, 2017: São Paulo, Brazil: I’ll be taking part in Conexões Itaú Cultural, where I’ll discuss my work as a translator of Brazilian literature. More information here. UPDATE: You can watch a video of the panel, in which Chad Post of Open Letter, literary agent Lucia Riff, and Fábio Lima of the Brazilian National Library also took part, on the Itaú Cultural YouTube channel.
October 7, 2017: American Literary Translators Association Conference, Minneapolis, MN. I’ll be talking Words without Borders and pitching digital translation journals with some great colleagues from other magazines featuring work in translation.
February 28, 2017 at 7:30pm: “Another Way to Say.” I’ll be reading from my translations of Lygia Fagundes Telles and Alice Sant’Anna as part of this terrific reading series at Molasses Books in Brooklyn.
September 5, 2016: “A literatura brasileira nos Estados Unidos” (Brazilian Literature in the United States). Public event via the Creative Writing Program at the Instituto Vera Cruz, São Paulo, Brazil.
June 18, 2016: À procura da terceira margem: literatura brasileira em tradução/In Search of the Third Bank: Brazilian Literature in Translation. Workshop on literary translation and specifically the translation of Brazilian literature into English at the Brazilian Writers’ Union – Goiáis.
April 23, 2016 at 12:30 local time & April 24 at 20h : Appearance on TV program Raízes, PUC-TV Goiânia. I’ll be discussing my translation of Amid Those Hills, After the Rain, the 2012 Jabuti Prize-winning novel by Brazilian writer Edival Lourenço (pictured at left). Translation is part of my Fulbright project. Link to come soon.
September 23, 2015 at 7 pm: Bulgarian Fiction Ny(ghts) with Georgi Gospodinov. Words without Borders editor
Eric M. B. Becker and Milena Deleva (Elizabeth Kostova Foundation) in conversation with the acclaimed Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov on his latest novel, The Physics of Sorrow, and other recent fiction and nonfiction works. In truly international fashion, the event will be conducted in both Bulgarian and English. more info>>>
September 21, 2015 at 6:30 pm: Net Lit Unlimited. A Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event. Join WWB Editor Eric M. B. Becker, Geoff Mak from The Offing, and translator and love german books blogger Katy Derbyshire, just back from Berlin, for a discussion on the limits and un-limits of sharing literature on the net. more info>>>
Conferences
2015 ALTA Conference, Tucson, AZ. Thursday, October 29, 11:15am – 12:30pm: “Digital Translation Journals as Innovators.” American Literary Translators Conference. Readers interested in the newest translations have the most diverse reasons and backgrounds driving their special interests, and are spread across countries. The digital environment is revolutionizing the way new voices from around the world are being discovered while also building community and creating a new readership for writers from many distinct traditions. What are the specific opportunities for translations in the digital sphere, what are the the successes, and what needs to be done to ensure vital new voices rise above the din to find new Anglophone audiences? Presentations by Heather Cleary (Buenos Aires Review), Chenxin Jiang (Asymptote), and Jennifer Zoble (InTranslation). Moderated by Words without Borders editor and translator from the Portuguese Eric M. B. Becker.
Paper: “Mia Couto: Inventing an Idiom to Redefine National Memory and Identity.” LANGSA Conference, University of Connecticut. November 2014.
Panel: “Digital Platforms for Publishing Translations.” Book Expo America. May 2014.
Other Readings
Catalan Institute of America St. Jordi Lit Crawl, April 2014
Translation Night at Recession Art, December 2013
Lit Crawl Brooklyn, May 2013
