Center for the Art of Translation 2025 Impact Report

2025 Impact Report

THE NEXT CHAPTER

DEAR FRIEND,

We are living through an incredibly difficult moment. Like you, I am shocked by what is happening at home and abroad. Cruel acts, twisted rhetoric. It is also stunning to see how artificial intelligence is eroding our skills and our trust. It seems as if everywhere I turn, the arts—crucial to our shared humanity—are under attack.

Yet this past year I have still been inspired. I have been moved by the ways our literary community shows up for one another: by bearing witness, by fostering empathy, and by transforming language into art. I believe at this challenging time our task is to make space for creativity and complexity. It is up to us to draw on global literature to build connections across our differences.

In 2025, your support nurtured a network of readers who know that translation is essential to cultural understanding and creative exchange. Thanks to you, CAT found new readers for international writers, brought people together at events including the Day of Translation, and created opportunities for writers and translators to be recognized for their artistry. Your giving opened doors for emerging translators through the Stevns Translation Prize.

You enabled Two Lines Press to publish urgent, overlooked work such as Hair on Fire, the first-ever collection of poetry in translation by Afghan women and a reminder of what we lose when voices are silenced.

In these pages you’ll discover how CAT’s literary alliances are growing, and you’ll get a glimpse of what’s next. CAT is audacious. We are committed to serving writers and translators, broadening perspectives, celebrating the arts—and making the world a better place.

With gratitude and in solidarity,

MICHAEL HOLTMANN, PRESIDENT

DEAR FRIEND,

We are living through an incredibly difficult moment. Like you, I am shocked by what is happening at home and abroad. Cruel acts, twisted rhetoric. It is also stunning to see how artificial intelligence is eroding our skills and our trust. It seems as if everywhere I turn, the arts—crucial to our shared humanity—are under attack.

Yet this past year I have still been inspired. I have been moved by the ways our literary community shows up for one another: by bearing witness, by fostering empathy, and by transforming language into art. I believe at this challenging time our task is to make space for creativity and complexity. It is up to us to draw on global literature to build connections across our differences.

In 2025, your support nurtured a network of readers who know that translation is essential to cultural understanding and creative exchange. Thanks to you, CAT found new readers for international writers, brought people together at events including the Day of Translation, and created opportunities for writers and translators to be recognized for their artistry. Your giving opened doors for emerging translators through the Stevns Translation Prize.

You enabled Two Lines Press to publish urgent, overlooked work such as Hair on Fire, the first-ever collection of poetry in translation by Afghan women and a reminder of what we lose when voices are silenced.

In these pages you’ll discover how CAT’s literary alliances are growing, and you’ll get a glimpse of what’s next. CAT is audacious. We are committed to serving writers and translators, broadening perspectives, celebrating the arts—and making the world a better place.

With gratitude and in solidarity,

MICHAEL HOLTMANN, PRESIDENT

NEW HEIGHTS & AUDIENCES “THE DAY OF TRANSLATION WAS A JOY, AND FILLED ME WITH HOPE FOR CONNECTING WITHIN AND BEYOND OUR OWN COMMUNITIES.” PAULA H.

2025 ATTENDEE

With the generous support of donors and grant funding from Hawthornden Foundation, our annual Day of Translation event reached new heights and new audiences last year. By renewing our partnership with The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, we welcomed more than 570 in-person and livestream attendees on the day of the event, plus over 540 post-event video views— our highest turnout ever. An open call for submissions ensured that panels reflected what our community was interested in exploring, and the conversations ranged from “resistance translation” to a discussion of translation in a time of censorship and polarization, and the delightfully unexpected “interspecies translation.” Fourteen speakers—twelve of them translators— received paid honoraria and all travel expenses. The event culminated in a sold-out keynote conversation between author– translators Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri, who explored translation as an act of reshaping text and self. None of it would have been possible without you.

(LEFT) Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri headlined the Day of Translation. (RIGHT) Panelist Khaled Rajeh

and audience members between panels. PHOTO CREDIT ASLAN CHALOM

1,117 14 4 Audience members at the 2025 Day of Translation.

ATTENDEES

SPEAKERS

PANELS

39

PANEL SUBMISSIONS

NEW HEIGHTS & AUDIENCES “THE DAY OF TRANSLATION WAS A JOY, AND FILLED ME WITH HOPE FOR CONNECTING WITHIN AND BEYOND OUR OWN COMMUNITIES.” PAULA H.

2025 ATTENDEE

With the generous support of donors and grant funding from Hawthornden Foundation, our annual Day of Translation event reached new heights and new audiences last year. By renewing our partnership with The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, we welcomed more than 570 in-person and livestream attendees on the day of the event, plus over 540 post-event video views— our highest turnout ever. An open call for submissions ensured that panels reflected what our community was interested in exploring, and the conversations ranged from “resistance translation” to a discussion of translation in a time of censorship and polarization, and the delightfully unexpected “interspecies translation.” Fourteen speakers—twelve of them translators— received paid honoraria and all travel expenses. The event culminated in a sold-out keynote conversation between author– translators Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri, who explored translation as an act of reshaping text and self. None of it would have been possible without you.

(LEFT) Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri headlined the Day of Translation. (RIGHT) Panelist Khaled Rajeh

and audience members between panels. PHOTO CREDIT ASLAN CHALOM

1,117 14 4 Audience members at the 2025 Day of Translation.

ATTENDEES

SPEAKERS

PANELS

39

PANEL SUBMISSIONS

REACHING READERS “ONLY TWO LINES PRESS WOULD SEND A TRANSLATOR ON TOUR.” MEGAN MCDOWELL

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER & THE WEEK OF COLORS TRANSLATOR

CAT’s events and book tours aim to spark conversations among writers, translators, and readers, and bring new translation titles to audiences across the country and around the world. Thanks to donor support, we send both authors and translators on tour, a commitment few other publishers make, but one we believe is essential to connect literary translation with a larger audience.

In 2025, your generosity supported tours for two remarkable Two Lines Press books. In total, 257 people in five cities were introduced to Hong Kong author Hon Lai Chu’s Mending Bodies, a dystopian exploration of body autonomy, relationships, and late capitalism, along with the book’s translator, Jacqueline Leung.

The Queen of Swords author Jazmina Barrera and translator Megan McDowell visited eight cities to celebrate the publication of Barrera’s long-overdue tribute to Mexican author and magical realism pioneer Elena Garro and McDowell’s translation of Garro’s first short-story collection, reaching more than 300 people.

Megan McDowell (LEFT) and Jazmina Barrera at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco.

PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU

48

TOTAL EVENTS

82

AUTHORS & TRANSLATORS

2,800 TOTAL AUDIENCES

“AS A HONG KONG WRITER, WHO WRITES IN CHINESE, I NEVER IMAGINED I COULD MEET WESTERN READERS IN PERSON.” HON LAI CHU

MENDING BODIES AUTHOR

Jacqueline Leung (LEFT), Hon Lai Chu (CENTER), and Claire Light (RIGHT) at On Waverly in San Francisco.

REACHING READERS “ONLY TWO LINES PRESS WOULD SEND A TRANSLATOR ON TOUR.” MEGAN MCDOWELL

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER & THE WEEK OF COLORS TRANSLATOR

CAT’s events and book tours aim to spark conversations among writers, translators, and readers, and bring new translation titles to audiences across the country and around the world. Thanks to donor support, we send both authors and translators on tour, a commitment few other publishers make, but one we believe is essential to connect literary translation with a larger audience.

In 2025, your generosity supported tours for two remarkable Two Lines Press books. In total, 257 people in five cities were introduced to Hong Kong author Hon Lai Chu’s Mending Bodies, a dystopian exploration of body autonomy, relationships, and late capitalism, along with the book’s translator, Jacqueline Leung.

The Queen of Swords author Jazmina Barrera and translator Megan McDowell visited eight cities to celebrate the publication of Barrera’s long-overdue tribute to Mexican author and magical realism pioneer Elena Garro and McDowell’s translation of Garro’s first short-story collection, reaching more than 300 people.

Megan McDowell (LEFT) and Jazmina Barrera at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco.

PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU

48

TOTAL EVENTS

82

AUTHORS & TRANSLATORS

2,800 TOTAL AUDIENCES

“AS A HONG KONG WRITER, WHO WRITES IN CHINESE, I NEVER IMAGINED I COULD MEET WESTERN READERS IN PERSON.” HON LAI CHU

MENDING BODIES AUTHOR

Jacqueline Leung (LEFT), Hon Lai Chu (CENTER), and Claire Light (RIGHT) at On Waverly in San Francisco.

with official-looking strangers, trying to get his job as a translator back. This new Cairo, busy with expats and bureaucrats, is proving disorienting: What is he supposed to make of these self-assured newcomers who are so certain of his obsolescence, his subjugation, his solitude? They seem happy to provide him with a salary, if he’s willing to give up the work that gave his life meaning. As his encounters more to escape the system set against him threatens to suffocate him, Warif escapes into the vivid colors of the city, looking deeper and deeper into the food, the people, the buildings,

“As the title suggests, this novel’s form is elusive, its language at times meltingly beautiful…”

—Hannah Gold, The Millions

5" x 8"

“ L O N E L I N E S S A N D F A M I LY, THE SEARCH FOR LOVE, A N D A R ES U R FAC I N G PA ST A L L INTERTWINE IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY S T O R Y T H AT O S C I L L AT E S B E T W E E N SOCIAL CRITICISM AND A N E X P L O R AT I O N O F T H E P R I M I T I V E F O R C E S O F E X I S T E N C E .”

— M A N U E L V I L A S , AUTHOR OF ORDESA

“ B E N E AT H T H E I M P E C C A B L E S U R FAC E O F N AVA R R O ’ S I C E - C O L D PROSE, DREAD AND GRIEF WRESTLE IN A TERRITORY OF U N C A N N Y S H A D O W S .”

— M A RYS E M E I J E R , AUTHOR OF THE SEVENTH MANSION

A THRILLING M E TA F I C T I O N

about grief, the internet, and the difficulty of knowing others, The Voices of Adriana combines the psychological acuity of Marguerite Duras with the creative possibility of One Thousand and One Nights.

Adriana has become obsessed with her father’s online dating.

Recently widowed, he’s on a self-destructive, manic search for a partner to accompany him through his twilight years. At the same time, Adriana’s life as an isolated grad student feels unreal, and to fill the void of her mother’s death, she begins writing, trying on different voices. She builds worlds from the online profiles of her father’s latest flings, that is until more fundamental voices—those of her mother and grandmother—begin calling out to her in the night. The Voices of Adriana, the latest from National Book Award-longlisted writer Elvira Navarro, is an innovative novel about grief and how we might reanimate the voices of those we’ve lost, not as ghosts, but as living parts of ourselves.

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA

translated by ROBIN MOGER

E LV I R A N A V A R R O T R A N S L AT E D BY CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY

Cover design by NAJEEBAH AL-GHADBAN

51800

SLEEP PHASE MOHAMED KHEIR

(TR. ROBIN MOGER) 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE LONGLIST

WOODWORM LAYLA MARTÍNEZ

(TR. SOPHIE HUGHES & ANNIE MCDERMOTT) 2025 QUEEN SOFÍA SPANISH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION PRIZE LONGLIST

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA ELVIRA NAVARRO (TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD NOMINATION

0.964"

Ixelles Introduction by Omar El Akkad

Translated by Nichola Smalley

Johannes Anyuru

Johannes Anyuru

“Anyuru has a talent for showing the seams in society’s sewing. Often, Ixelles reads like faint transmissions from uneasy, adjacent universes. There is something of Borges that runs through the novel— a child’s compendium of monsters from a role-playing game; past lives that refuse to die; the gravity of a library, that desperate wanting to be consumed by a story, by many stories at once; belonging as a matter of narrative ownership. It occurs to me that, just as so many of Borges’ characters might be said to share his fear of dying in a language they can’t understand, Anyuru’s characters often navigate the world as though gripped by a fear of dying in a culture that doesn’t understand them.”

—from the introduction by Omar El Akkad

— A N D R É S N E U M A N , AUTHOR OF FRACTURE

Praise for Johannes Anyuru “Tender and tense… Ixelles is a reflective novel about the dangerous allure and empowering vindication of using fiction to cope with reality.”

—Foreword Reviews (starred review) “Anyuru underscores the reality that even parallel worlds involve global connections… Each of his characters feels real, whether experiencing friendship and delight or torture and death.”

—NPR “It’s a rare author who has such sensitivity with explosive materials.”

—Washington Post

“Jazmina Barrera’s take is intimate and playful, and transgressive in the ways we generally get condemned to when considering a life, especially a literary and a female one. Here we splash dramatically, surrounded by Garro’s (and Barrera’s) obsessions, toys, affairs, homes, animal friends, the works. It’s a joyous brainy blast and I’m intrigued and changed by The Queen of Swords as a reader and a writer.”—Eileen Myles

In what was at first meant to be just a short essay, Jazmina Barrera’s deep curiosity keeps returning to the central question: Who was the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro, really?

She was a writer, a founder of “magical realism,” a dancer.

A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination.

The Queen of Swords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry for justice; and an homage to how each individual is ultimately unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

$ 24 . 00

IXELLES JOHANNES ANYURU

(TR. NICHOLA SMALLEY) 2025 NATIONAL TRANSLATION PRIZE LONGLIST

JAZMINA BARRERA

After discovering a golden CD with a voice on it claiming to be her dead boyfriend Mio, Ruth feels her past return like the rising tide, mysterious and inevitable. The voice says he’s somewhere called the Nothingness Section. But is Mio really on an island “slowly sinking into the sea,” as the voice claims? Or is this just another fiction in a world made of them?

CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY

is an award-winning literary translator.

She has translated works by such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Daniel Saldaña París, Jazmina Barrera, Julián Herbert, Clyo Mendoza, Karla Suárez, and Verónica Gerber Bicecci. She has also contributed to anthologies of Latin American literature and published shorter translations, articles, interviews, and collaborations on a wide variety of platforms. Her translation of Jazmina Barrera’s novel Cross-Stitch, also published by Two Lines Press, was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize (US and Canada) in 2023.

“ B R U TA L LY H O N E S T Y E T M Y S T E R I O U S LY E L U S I V E , W I T H S C A L P E L- L I K E P R E C I S I O N AND POETIC SHARPNESS, E LV I R A N A V A R R O E X P L O R E S T H E DIALECTIC OF CARE, ITS VULNERABILITIES, AND I T S L E G A C I E S .”

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

NICHOLA SMALLEY is a translator from Swedish and Norwegian. In 2021 she won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and her work has also been nominated for the International Booker, Bernard Shaw, and Warwick Prizes. She has a PhD in the use of slang in contemporary Swedish and English literature, and worked for several years in publishing. She lives in London.

.25

“Push[es] both its characters and its readers to extend their minds beyond the limits of what’s possible.”

—Seattle Times

Design: Jonathan Pelham

(TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE LONGLIST

3.25"

“Connecting the fragmentary and seemingly contradictory details of the novel’s architecture makes for a thrilling read.”

—Chicago Review of Books

MOHAMED KHEIR

$18.00 ISBN 978-1-949641-78-3 Painting by Hossam Dirar

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS JAZMINA BARRERA

JOHANNES ANYURU is a poet, novelist, and playwright. He debuted in 2003 with the critically acclaimed collection of poems Only the Gods Are New, and in 2012 published his first novel, A Storm Came from Paradise. His most recent novel, They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears, also published by Two Lines Press, was awarded the August Prize and named the Swedish book of the year.

SLEEP PHASE

ELVIRA NAVARRO has published both novels and short stories. Her novel A Working Woman, which addresses the impact of the economic crisis on the contemporary female experience, established her as a leading voice in Spanish literature. She has been the recipient of numerous significant accolades in Spain, including the Jaén Novel Prize and the Andalusian Critics’ Prize. Her collection of short stories, Rabbit Island, also translated

by Christina MacSweeney, was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2023, The Voices of Adriana was awarded the Cálamo Special Prize.

ON A WOMAN'S MADNESS ASTRID ROEMER

(TR. LUCY SCOTT) 2025 INSIDE LITERARY PRIZE FINALIST

Design by Jonathan Pelham

Design by Jonathan Pelham

and the flowers, until what’s real blurs into fantasy.

9781949641783

Cover design: Jonathan Pelham

Your support enabled Two Lines Press to continue to champion overlooked international writers and take on translation projects that few other publishers do. 2025 marked a new chapter in our reach and impact: our books earned nominations or awards for seven literary prizes, including two National Book Award longlisted titles, Jazmina Barrera’s The Queen of Swords and Mohamed Kheir’s Sleep Phase. The Queen of Swords also won the 2025 Cercador Prize. We published Hair On Fire, the firstever collection of poetry in translation by Afghan women, featuring poets never before published in English and the work of five emerging translators. We launched a partnership with UK publisher Peirene Press to award the Stevns Translation Prize to an emerging translator. Eva Meijer's Sea Now, translated by Stevns Translation Prize–winner Anne Thompson Melo, was the first title to be published simultaneously by Two Lines Press in the US and Peirene Press in the UK.

After seven years in prison, Warif is released to a changed Cairo. Freedom so far has been endless, inscrutable meetings

“A partly real, partly fantastical depiction of post-revolutionary Cairo and Alexandria as seen through the stories of a struggling journalist, a former exile, and a difficult love affair.

Featuring giant flowers bigger than people and episodes of walking on water, the fantastical in this novel feels as true to the Cairo of today as the parts that are lifted from life.”

—Yasmine El Rashidi, The New York Times

E LV I R A N A V A R R O

$ 24 . 00

—Noor Naga, author of If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

and more resemble interrogations and the futility of trying

The Queen of Swords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry for justice; and an homage to how each individual is ultimately unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

Praise for MOHAMED KHEIR and Slipping

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA

She was a writer, a founder of “magical realism,” a dancer.

A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination.

like someone whispering gently into your ear all the ways you are failing.”

SLEEP PHASE

AWARD NOMINATIONS

In what was at first meant to be just a short essay, Jazmina Barrera’s deep curiosity keeps returning to the central question: Who was the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro, really?

0.5938"

the last two decades, Kheir’s take on Egyptian futurism is more dream than nightmare, but still disarmingly critical …

MOHAMED KHEIR

COUNTRIES

7

ROBIN MOGER is a translator of Arabic to English currently based in Barcelona. He has translated several novels and prose works, most recently Iman Mersal’s Traces of Enayat, Haytham El Wardany’s The Book of Sleep, Agitated Air: Poems after Ibn Arabi with Yasmine Seale, and Slipping

by Mohammed Kheir.

5" x 8"

“After the violent Egyptian dystopias that were so trendy in

Ixelles

LANGUAGES

10

JAZMINA BARRERA

8

MOHAMED KHEIR is a novelist, poet, short-story writer, journalist, and lyricist. His short-story collections Remsh Al Ein and Afarit Al Radio both received The Sawiris Cultural Award, and Leil Khargi (2001) was awarded the Egyptian Ministry of Culture Award for poetry. Sleep Phase is his second novel to be translated into English after Slipping, also translated by Robin Moger and published by Two Lines Press. He lives in Egypt.

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR

3.25"

“Jazmina Barrera’s take is intimate and playful, and transgressive in the ways we generally get condemned to when considering a life, especially a literary and a female one. Here we splash dramatically, surrounded by Garro’s (and Barrera’s) obsessions, toys, affairs, homes, animal friends, the works. It’s a joyous brainy blast and I’m intrigued and changed by The Queen of Swords as a reader and a writer.”—Eileen Myles

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS JAZMINA BARRERA

(TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) 2025 CERCADOR PRIZE WINNER

“AN UNWAVERINGLY BRILLIANT PORTRAIT OF A COMPLEX AND UNDONE LIFE, CAPTURED IN ART AND DESTRUCTION, LOVE AND PAIN, FAITH AND PERSECUTION.” THE QUEEN OF SWORDS CERCADOR PRIZE JURY “CRUCIAL STORIES THAT PIERCE THE HEART OF THE MODERN WORLD. A MUST-READ.” KIRKUS REVIEWS THE WEEK OF COLORS “MOURNFUL AND IRREVERENT ALL AT ONCE...UNEXPECTED JUXTAPOSITIONS ABOUND.” WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS HAIR ON FIRE

with official-looking strangers, trying to get his job as a translator back. This new Cairo, busy with expats and bureaucrats, is proving disorienting: What is he supposed to make of these self-assured newcomers who are so certain of his obsolescence, his subjugation, his solitude? They seem happy to provide him with a salary, if he’s willing to give up the work that gave his life meaning. As his encounters more to escape the system set against him threatens to suffocate him, Warif escapes into the vivid colors of the city, looking deeper and deeper into the food, the people, the buildings,

“As the title suggests, this novel’s form is elusive, its language at times meltingly beautiful…”

—Hannah Gold, The Millions

5" x 8"

“ L O N E L I N E S S A N D F A M I LY, THE SEARCH FOR LOVE, A N D A R ES U R FAC I N G PA ST A L L INTERTWINE IN THIS EXTRAORDINARY S T O R Y T H AT O S C I L L AT E S B E T W E E N SOCIAL CRITICISM AND A N E X P L O R AT I O N O F T H E P R I M I T I V E F O R C E S O F E X I S T E N C E .”

— M A N U E L V I L A S , AUTHOR OF ORDESA

“ B E N E AT H T H E I M P E C C A B L E S U R FAC E O F N AVA R R O ’ S I C E - C O L D PROSE, DREAD AND GRIEF WRESTLE IN A TERRITORY OF U N C A N N Y S H A D O W S .”

— M A RYS E M E I J E R , AUTHOR OF THE SEVENTH MANSION

A THRILLING M E TA F I C T I O N

about grief, the internet, and the difficulty of knowing others, The Voices of Adriana combines the psychological acuity of Marguerite Duras with the creative possibility of One Thousand and One Nights.

Adriana has become obsessed with her father’s online dating.

Recently widowed, he’s on a self-destructive, manic search for a partner to accompany him through his twilight years. At the same time, Adriana’s life as an isolated grad student feels unreal, and to fill the void of her mother’s death, she begins writing, trying on different voices. She builds worlds from the online profiles of her father’s latest flings, that is until more fundamental voices—those of her mother and grandmother—begin calling out to her in the night. The Voices of Adriana, the latest from National Book Award-longlisted writer Elvira Navarro, is an innovative novel about grief and how we might reanimate the voices of those we’ve lost, not as ghosts, but as living parts of ourselves.

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA

translated by ROBIN MOGER

E LV I R A N A V A R R O T R A N S L AT E D BY CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY

Cover design by NAJEEBAH AL-GHADBAN

51800

SLEEP PHASE MOHAMED KHEIR

(TR. ROBIN MOGER) 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE LONGLIST

WOODWORM LAYLA MARTÍNEZ

(TR. SOPHIE HUGHES & ANNIE MCDERMOTT) 2025 QUEEN SOFÍA SPANISH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION PRIZE LONGLIST

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA ELVIRA NAVARRO (TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD NOMINATION

0.964"

Ixelles Introduction by Omar El Akkad

Translated by Nichola Smalley

Johannes Anyuru

Johannes Anyuru

“Anyuru has a talent for showing the seams in society’s sewing. Often, Ixelles reads like faint transmissions from uneasy, adjacent universes. There is something of Borges that runs through the novel— a child’s compendium of monsters from a role-playing game; past lives that refuse to die; the gravity of a library, that desperate wanting to be consumed by a story, by many stories at once; belonging as a matter of narrative ownership. It occurs to me that, just as so many of Borges’ characters might be said to share his fear of dying in a language they can’t understand, Anyuru’s characters often navigate the world as though gripped by a fear of dying in a culture that doesn’t understand them.”

—from the introduction by Omar El Akkad

— A N D R É S N E U M A N , AUTHOR OF FRACTURE

Praise for Johannes Anyuru “Tender and tense… Ixelles is a reflective novel about the dangerous allure and empowering vindication of using fiction to cope with reality.”

—Foreword Reviews (starred review) “Anyuru underscores the reality that even parallel worlds involve global connections… Each of his characters feels real, whether experiencing friendship and delight or torture and death.”

—NPR “It’s a rare author who has such sensitivity with explosive materials.”

—Washington Post

“Jazmina Barrera’s take is intimate and playful, and transgressive in the ways we generally get condemned to when considering a life, especially a literary and a female one. Here we splash dramatically, surrounded by Garro’s (and Barrera’s) obsessions, toys, affairs, homes, animal friends, the works. It’s a joyous brainy blast and I’m intrigued and changed by The Queen of Swords as a reader and a writer.”—Eileen Myles

In what was at first meant to be just a short essay, Jazmina Barrera’s deep curiosity keeps returning to the central question: Who was the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro, really?

She was a writer, a founder of “magical realism,” a dancer.

A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination.

The Queen of Swords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry for justice; and an homage to how each individual is ultimately unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

$ 24 . 00

IXELLES JOHANNES ANYURU

(TR. NICHOLA SMALLEY) 2025 NATIONAL TRANSLATION PRIZE LONGLIST

JAZMINA BARRERA

After discovering a golden CD with a voice on it claiming to be her dead boyfriend Mio, Ruth feels her past return like the rising tide, mysterious and inevitable. The voice says he’s somewhere called the Nothingness Section. But is Mio really on an island “slowly sinking into the sea,” as the voice claims? Or is this just another fiction in a world made of them?

CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY

is an award-winning literary translator.

She has translated works by such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Daniel Saldaña París, Jazmina Barrera, Julián Herbert, Clyo Mendoza, Karla Suárez, and Verónica Gerber Bicecci. She has also contributed to anthologies of Latin American literature and published shorter translations, articles, interviews, and collaborations on a wide variety of platforms. Her translation of Jazmina Barrera’s novel Cross-Stitch, also published by Two Lines Press, was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize (US and Canada) in 2023.

“ B R U TA L LY H O N E S T Y E T M Y S T E R I O U S LY E L U S I V E , W I T H S C A L P E L- L I K E P R E C I S I O N AND POETIC SHARPNESS, E LV I R A N A V A R R O E X P L O R E S T H E DIALECTIC OF CARE, ITS VULNERABILITIES, AND I T S L E G A C I E S .”

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

NICHOLA SMALLEY is a translator from Swedish and Norwegian. In 2021 she won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and her work has also been nominated for the International Booker, Bernard Shaw, and Warwick Prizes. She has a PhD in the use of slang in contemporary Swedish and English literature, and worked for several years in publishing. She lives in London.

.25

“Push[es] both its characters and its readers to extend their minds beyond the limits of what’s possible.”

—Seattle Times

Design: Jonathan Pelham

(TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE LONGLIST

3.25"

“Connecting the fragmentary and seemingly contradictory details of the novel’s architecture makes for a thrilling read.”

—Chicago Review of Books

MOHAMED KHEIR

$18.00 ISBN 978-1-949641-78-3 Painting by Hossam Dirar

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS JAZMINA BARRERA

JOHANNES ANYURU is a poet, novelist, and playwright. He debuted in 2003 with the critically acclaimed collection of poems Only the Gods Are New, and in 2012 published his first novel, A Storm Came from Paradise. His most recent novel, They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears, also published by Two Lines Press, was awarded the August Prize and named the Swedish book of the year.

SLEEP PHASE

ELVIRA NAVARRO has published both novels and short stories. Her novel A Working Woman, which addresses the impact of the economic crisis on the contemporary female experience, established her as a leading voice in Spanish literature. She has been the recipient of numerous significant accolades in Spain, including the Jaén Novel Prize and the Andalusian Critics’ Prize. Her collection of short stories, Rabbit Island, also translated

by Christina MacSweeney, was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2023, The Voices of Adriana was awarded the Cálamo Special Prize.

ON A WOMAN'S MADNESS ASTRID ROEMER

(TR. LUCY SCOTT) 2025 INSIDE LITERARY PRIZE FINALIST

Design by Jonathan Pelham

Design by Jonathan Pelham

and the flowers, until what’s real blurs into fantasy.

9781949641783

Cover design: Jonathan Pelham

Your support enabled Two Lines Press to continue to champion overlooked international writers and take on translation projects that few other publishers do. 2025 marked a new chapter in our reach and impact: our books earned nominations or awards for seven literary prizes, including two National Book Award longlisted titles, Jazmina Barrera’s The Queen of Swords and Mohamed Kheir’s Sleep Phase. The Queen of Swords also won the 2025 Cercador Prize. We published Hair On Fire, the firstever collection of poetry in translation by Afghan women, featuring poets never before published in English and the work of five emerging translators. We launched a partnership with UK publisher Peirene Press to award the Stevns Translation Prize to an emerging translator. Eva Meijer's Sea Now, translated by Stevns Translation Prize–winner Anne Thompson Melo, was the first title to be published simultaneously by Two Lines Press in the US and Peirene Press in the UK.

After seven years in prison, Warif is released to a changed Cairo. Freedom so far has been endless, inscrutable meetings

“A partly real, partly fantastical depiction of post-revolutionary Cairo and Alexandria as seen through the stories of a struggling journalist, a former exile, and a difficult love affair.

Featuring giant flowers bigger than people and episodes of walking on water, the fantastical in this novel feels as true to the Cairo of today as the parts that are lifted from life.”

—Yasmine El Rashidi, The New York Times

E LV I R A N A V A R R O

$ 24 . 00

—Noor Naga, author of If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

and more resemble interrogations and the futility of trying

The Queen of Swords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry for justice; and an homage to how each individual is ultimately unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

Praise for MOHAMED KHEIR and Slipping

THE VOICES OF ADRIANA

She was a writer, a founder of “magical realism,” a dancer.

A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination.

like someone whispering gently into your ear all the ways you are failing.”

SLEEP PHASE

AWARD NOMINATIONS

In what was at first meant to be just a short essay, Jazmina Barrera’s deep curiosity keeps returning to the central question: Who was the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro, really?

0.5938"

the last two decades, Kheir’s take on Egyptian futurism is more dream than nightmare, but still disarmingly critical …

MOHAMED KHEIR

COUNTRIES

7

ROBIN MOGER is a translator of Arabic to English currently based in Barcelona. He has translated several novels and prose works, most recently Iman Mersal’s Traces of Enayat, Haytham El Wardany’s The Book of Sleep, Agitated Air: Poems after Ibn Arabi with Yasmine Seale, and Slipping

by Mohammed Kheir.

5" x 8"

“After the violent Egyptian dystopias that were so trendy in

Ixelles

LANGUAGES

10

JAZMINA BARRERA

8

MOHAMED KHEIR is a novelist, poet, short-story writer, journalist, and lyricist. His short-story collections Remsh Al Ein and Afarit Al Radio both received The Sawiris Cultural Award, and Leil Khargi (2001) was awarded the Egyptian Ministry of Culture Award for poetry. Sleep Phase is his second novel to be translated into English after Slipping, also translated by Robin Moger and published by Two Lines Press. He lives in Egypt.

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS

A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR

3.25"

“Jazmina Barrera’s take is intimate and playful, and transgressive in the ways we generally get condemned to when considering a life, especially a literary and a female one. Here we splash dramatically, surrounded by Garro’s (and Barrera’s) obsessions, toys, affairs, homes, animal friends, the works. It’s a joyous brainy blast and I’m intrigued and changed by The Queen of Swords as a reader and a writer.”—Eileen Myles

THE QUEEN OF SWORDS JAZMINA BARRERA

(TR. CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY) 2025 CERCADOR PRIZE WINNER

“AN UNWAVERINGLY BRILLIANT PORTRAIT OF A COMPLEX AND UNDONE LIFE, CAPTURED IN ART AND DESTRUCTION, LOVE AND PAIN, FAITH AND PERSECUTION.” THE QUEEN OF SWORDS CERCADOR PRIZE JURY “CRUCIAL STORIES THAT PIERCE THE HEART OF THE MODERN WORLD. A MUST-READ.” KIRKUS REVIEWS THE WEEK OF COLORS “MOURNFUL AND IRREVERENT ALL AT ONCE...UNEXPECTED JUXTAPOSITIONS ABOUND.” WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS HAIR ON FIRE

“TWO LINES PRESS IS COMMITTED TO GIVING EMERGING, GENERATIONDEFINING AUTHORS A CREATIVE HOME, INVESTING IN THEM OVER THE LONG TERM SO THEY CAN KEEP WRITING AND PURSUING AMBITIOUS, WIDE-RANGING PROJECTS.” CJ EVANS, PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF

CENTERFOLD TK

“TWO LINES PRESS IS COMMITTED TO GIVING EMERGING, GENERATIONDEFINING AUTHORS A CREATIVE HOME, INVESTING IN THEM OVER THE LONG TERM SO THEY CAN KEEP WRITING AND PURSUING AMBITIOUS, WIDE-RANGING PROJECTS.” CJ EVANS, PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF

CENTERFOLD TK

TOMORROW’S READERS, WRITERS, & TRANSLATORS Thanks to donors like you, our Poetry Inside Out crosscultural poetry and translation language arts program is offered to participating teachers and schools at no charge. We want to ensure that every student, regardless of resources, can experience the power of poetry to improve reading and writing while building self-confidence, inspiring cultural understanding, and gaining a sense of belonging. You’re also supporting the Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship, now in its fourth year, which provides paid stipends and mentorship to educators as they learn to harness poetry and translation to spark student engagement and collaboration. The current class of five Bay Area Teaching Fellows helps us deepen our roots closer to home, and your generosity makes that possible.

“WORKING WITH BILINGUAL LEARNERS HAS SHOWN ME HOW TRANSLATION CAN HONOR IDENTITY, BUILD BRIDGES ACROSS COMMUNITIES, AND EMPOWER STUDENTS TO SHARE THEIR STORIES.” JESUS M.

2025–27 TEACHING FELLOW

Bay Area Poetry Inside Out students. PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU

“I’M INTERESTED IN HOW POETRY INSIDE OUT VALUES MULTIPLE LANGUAGES AND PERSPECTIVES, AND HOW IT ENCOURAGES STUDENTS TO SEE THEMSELVES AS BOTH POETS AND BRIDGE-BUILDERS.” JEAN CARLA R.

64

PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

2025–27 TEACHING FELLOW

24 4,800

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

STUDENTS SERVED

TOMORROW’S READERS, WRITERS, & TRANSLATORS Thanks to donors like you, our Poetry Inside Out crosscultural poetry and translation language arts program is offered to participating teachers and schools at no charge. We want to ensure that every student, regardless of resources, can experience the power of poetry to improve reading and writing while building self-confidence, inspiring cultural understanding, and gaining a sense of belonging. You’re also supporting the Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship, now in its fourth year, which provides paid stipends and mentorship to educators as they learn to harness poetry and translation to spark student engagement and collaboration. The current class of five Bay Area Teaching Fellows helps us deepen our roots closer to home, and your generosity makes that possible.

“WORKING WITH BILINGUAL LEARNERS HAS SHOWN ME HOW TRANSLATION CAN HONOR IDENTITY, BUILD BRIDGES ACROSS COMMUNITIES, AND EMPOWER STUDENTS TO SHARE THEIR STORIES.” JESUS M.

2025–27 TEACHING FELLOW

Bay Area Poetry Inside Out students. PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU

“I’M INTERESTED IN HOW POETRY INSIDE OUT VALUES MULTIPLE LANGUAGES AND PERSPECTIVES, AND HOW IT ENCOURAGES STUDENTS TO SEE THEMSELVES AS BOTH POETS AND BRIDGE-BUILDERS.” JEAN CARLA R.

64

PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

2025–27 TEACHING FELLOW

24 4,800

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

STUDENTS SERVED

ELEVATING NEW VOICES

Thanks to your generosity, CAT is opening new doors for the next generation of literary translators. 2025 marked a milestone with the publication of the first Two Lines Press book through the Stevns Translation Prize, which offers emerging translators a paid publishing contract, translation retreat, mentorship with an experienced translator, and travel expenses. For the first time, we held open calls for work from Asia and Oceania and from contemporary trans writers, widening the circle of literary translation. Your investment in artist care was felt by participants at the Day of Translation, one of whom described feeling “treated like a rock star” at the event. And your impact reached classrooms: Poetry Inside Out Program Director Mark Hauber led a workshop at the Center for Translation & Global Literacy at the University of Iowa, bringing the program to 19 more teachers and their students.

With your support, we’re not just imagining a more inclusive literary world—we’re actively building one.

“A LOT OF THESE ANTHOLOGIZATIONS [OF MIDDLE EASTERN POETS], UNFORTUNATELY, ARE HIGHLY POLITICIZED, AND THE TRANSLATION PROCESS CAN BE VERY UNETHICAL… WHAT I REALLY APPRECIATE AND ADMIRE ABOUT THIS ANTHOLOGY IS THE ETHICAL AND LITERARY DEDICATION OF THE PUBLISHERS TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WAS DONE WITH THE FULL CONSENT OF THE LEADING POETS. AND UNTIL THEY REACHED OUT TO THE POETS AND COMMUNICATED WITH THEM, THEY DIDN'T GO FORWARD.” Hair on Fire contributors Armen Davoudian (LEFT) and Fatemeh Shams read at the "Persian Poetry in Translation and Exile" event in San Francisco in November 2025. PHOTO CREDIT VALENTINA SADIUL

FATEMEH SHAMS

HAIR ON FIRE CONTRIBUTOR

ELEVATING NEW VOICES

Thanks to your generosity, CAT is opening new doors for the next generation of literary translators. 2025 marked a milestone with the publication of the first Two Lines Press book through the Stevns Translation Prize, which offers emerging translators a paid publishing contract, translation retreat, mentorship with an experienced translator, and travel expenses. For the first time, we held open calls for work from Asia and Oceania and from contemporary trans writers, widening the circle of literary translation. Your investment in artist care was felt by participants at the Day of Translation, one of whom described feeling “treated like a rock star” at the event. And your impact reached classrooms: Poetry Inside Out Program Director Mark Hauber led a workshop at the Center for Translation & Global Literacy at the University of Iowa, bringing the program to 19 more teachers and their students.

With your support, we’re not just imagining a more inclusive literary world—we’re actively building one.

“A LOT OF THESE ANTHOLOGIZATIONS [OF MIDDLE EASTERN POETS], UNFORTUNATELY, ARE HIGHLY POLITICIZED, AND THE TRANSLATION PROCESS CAN BE VERY UNETHICAL… WHAT I REALLY APPRECIATE AND ADMIRE ABOUT THIS ANTHOLOGY IS THE ETHICAL AND LITERARY DEDICATION OF THE PUBLISHERS TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WAS DONE WITH THE FULL CONSENT OF THE LEADING POETS. AND UNTIL THEY REACHED OUT TO THE POETS AND COMMUNICATED WITH THEM, THEY DIDN'T GO FORWARD.” Hair on Fire contributors Armen Davoudian (LEFT) and Fatemeh Shams read at the "Persian Poetry in Translation and Exile" event in San Francisco in November 2025. PHOTO CREDIT VALENTINA SADIUL

FATEMEH SHAMS

HAIR ON FIRE CONTRIBUTOR

BY THE NUMBERS

27

13

LANGUAGES FEATURED

UNDERREPRESENTED LANGUAGES

149,080 25,679 READERS REACHED

BOOKS SOLD

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DEBUTS

CATALAN / CZECH / DUTCH / FILIPINO / FINNISH GUJARATI / ICELANDIC / K’ICHE / KOREAN / PERSIAN PORTUGUESE / ROMANIAN / SWAHILI

120 Hair on Fire contributors Samantha Cosentino and Sabrina Nouri read at Telegraph Hill Books in San Francisco in October 2025.

5

AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS SUPPORTED

40 AUTHORS

80 TRANSLATORS

77% BIPOC AUTHORS

35% BIPOC TRANSLATORS

88% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN

85% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN

223 45 990

TWO LINES PRESS MEMBERS +50% SINCE 2024

COLLEGE COURSES TEACHING TWO LINES PRESS BOOKS +275% SINCE 2020

NEW COLLEGE-STUDENT READERS

BY THE NUMBERS

27

13

LANGUAGES FEATURED

UNDERREPRESENTED LANGUAGES

149,080 25,679 READERS REACHED

BOOKS SOLD

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DEBUTS

CATALAN / CZECH / DUTCH / FILIPINO / FINNISH GUJARATI / ICELANDIC / K’ICHE / KOREAN / PERSIAN PORTUGUESE / ROMANIAN / SWAHILI

120 Hair on Fire contributors Samantha Cosentino and Sabrina Nouri read at Telegraph Hill Books in San Francisco in October 2025.

5

AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS SUPPORTED

40 AUTHORS

80 TRANSLATORS

77% BIPOC AUTHORS

35% BIPOC TRANSLATORS

88% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN

85% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN

223 45 990

TWO LINES PRESS MEMBERS +50% SINCE 2024

COLLEGE COURSES TEACHING TWO LINES PRESS BOOKS +275% SINCE 2020

NEW COLLEGE-STUDENT READERS

THANK YOU. THE STORY CONTINUES WITH YOU. NONE OF THIS WOULD BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT YOU. YOUR GENEROSITY ALLOWS THE CENTER FOR THE ART OF TRANSLATION TO CHAMPION OVERLOOKED WRITERS, CELEBRATE THE ART OF TRANSLATION, AND BUILD A GROWING COMMUNITY OF READERS HUNGRY FOR THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. WE'RE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR SUPPORT, AND WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT WE BUILD TOGETHER.

The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) is a San Francisco–based nonprofit that champions literary translation and the translators who bring underrepresented global writers to English-language readers.

CAT builds a vibrant cross-cultural community through its awardwinning publisher Two Lines Press, dynamic events that connect readers and translators, and the educational program Poetry Inside Out, which brings poetry translation into classrooms.

CATRANSLATION.ORG/DONATE @CATRANSLATION @TWOLINESPRESS

THANK YOU. THE STORY CONTINUES WITH YOU. NONE OF THIS WOULD BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT YOU. YOUR GENEROSITY ALLOWS THE CENTER FOR THE ART OF TRANSLATION TO CHAMPION OVERLOOKED WRITERS, CELEBRATE THE ART OF TRANSLATION, AND BUILD A GROWING COMMUNITY OF READERS HUNGRY FOR THE WORLD'S LITERATURE. WE'RE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR SUPPORT, AND WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT WE BUILD TOGETHER.

The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) is a San Francisco–based nonprofit that champions literary translation and the translators who bring underrepresented global writers to English-language readers.

CAT builds a vibrant cross-cultural community through its awardwinning publisher Two Lines Press, dynamic events that connect readers and translators, and the educational program Poetry Inside Out, which brings poetry translation into classrooms.

CATRANSLATION.ORG/DONATE @CATRANSLATION @TWOLINESPRESS

CATRANSLATION.ORG