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
Audience members at the 2025 Day of Translation.
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.
1,117 ATTENDEES
14 SPEAKERS 4 PANELS
39 PANEL SUBMISSIONS
(LEFT) Katie Kitamura and Jhumpa Lahiri headlined the Day of Translation. (RIGHT) Panelist Khaled Rajeh and audience members between panels. PHOTO CREDIT ASLAN CHALOM
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.
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
Megan McDowell (LEFT) and Jazmina Barrera at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco.
PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU
Jacqueline Leung (LEFT) , Hon Lai Chu (CENTER) , and Claire Light (RIGHT) at On Waverly in San Francisco.
A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
COUNTRIES 8 LANGUAGES
AWARD NOMINATIONS
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.
“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
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
“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. 2025–27 TEACHING FELLOW
64 PARTICIPATING TEACHERS
24 SCHOOL DISTRICTS
4,800 STUDENTS SERVED
Bay Area Poetry Inside Out students. PHOTO CREDIT TOMMY LAU
ELEVATING NEW VOICES
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
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 CONTRIBUTOR
FATEMEH SHAMS
BY THE NUMBERS
149,080 25,679
READERS REACHED BOOKS SOLD
Hair on Fire contributors Samantha Cosentino and Sabrina Nouri read at Telegraph Hill Books in San Francisco in October 2025.
27 13 5
LANGUAGES FEATURED
UNDERREPRESENTED LANGUAGES
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DEBUTS
CATALAN / CZECH / DUTCH / FILIPINO / FINNISH
GUJARATI / ICELANDIC / K’ICHE / KOREAN / PERSIAN
PORTUGUESE / ROMANIAN / SWAHILI
120
223 TWO LINES PRESS MEMBERS +50% SINCE 2024
AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS SUPPORTED
45 COLLEGE COURSES TEACHING TWO LINES PRESS BOOKS
SINCE 2020
990
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.