Center for the Art of Translation 2022 Impact Report

Impact Report

Dear Friend, Behold: your 2022 Impact Report! I am incredibly grateful for everything you helped set in motion last year, and I hope you enjoy paging through our annual summary. I am proud to have published such stirring authors and translators, rekindled connections near and far, and done our humble part to enrich the literary landscape. Thank you for supporting this work and for sustaining the vibrant community that surrounds it.

2022 was about regaining momentum lost during the pandemic and building on efforts that have expanded our reach and made translated literature available to even more readers. At a moment when many daring literary magazines and presses have closed shop, your steady support meant we could keep Two Lines Press operations humming, welcome readers back to in-person events, create a new opportunity for teachers to amplify poetry and translation in their classrooms, and begin envisioning far greater ambitions.

Ours is an uncertain era, but I believe the values underpinning translation—cross-cultural connection, attention to language, and the discovery of new voices—can always lift us up and bring us together. I’m pleased to share with you some of last year’s successes, all of which were made possible because of your generous support. And I look forward to another year of dazzling new books from exceptional writers and translators, and greater impact still.

With gratitude,

MICHAEL HOLTMANN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER

MOMENTUM Barrera’s first book in English, On Lighthouses, became “a light at the end of the tunnel” for readers waiting out a global pandemic— and our bestselling title.

When we first encountered Mexican author Jazmina Barrera’s work, we couldn’t believe her singular voice had yet to appear in English. Despite protests from our distributor to wait, we published her meditative On Lighthouses, translated beautifully

by Christina MacSweeney, in the early days of the pandemic.

It turned out to be what The Paris Review called “a light at the end of the tunnel”—and our bestselling title ever.

2022 saw the publication of Barrera’s Linea Nigra, which was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. This fall her highly anticipated debut novel, Cross-Stitch, will appear. It is a joy to discover such an incredible talent and an honor to publish her work. Our ongoing partnership with Barrera and MacSweeney is an example of the long-lasting collaborations we build with authors and translators thanks to your support.

“The Center not only makes sure that their books get to as many hands and eyes as possible, but they also spend their time and resources promoting encounters with readers, fortifying the bonds with booksellers and reading advocates, and organizing spaces for dialogue around translation and the world cultures that translation brings together.”

JAZMINA BARRERA AUTHOR

“Translated literature is fundamental to a wider, more generous understanding of our world and I’m very proud to be able to participate in this passionate project to broaden our knowledge of global literatures and our access to them.”

CHRISTINA MACSWEENEY TRANSLATOR

COMMUNITY Our vibrant global community of readers, writers, translators, teachers, and students is at the heart of everything we do.

Your support creates opportunities for everyone to discover and celebrate literature in translation. After two years of pandemicrelated disruptions, we were able to present in-person events again in 2022. For our annual Day of Translation, on hiatus since 2019, we hosted 19 translators, writers, critics, artists, and publishers for provocative panels on language, literature, and advocacy. The day-long celebration in Washington, DC, brought more than 100 translation enthusiasts together for dynamic conversations and a renewed sense of community.

Virtual events continue to extend our reach across the globe, and we keep building new partnerships. In 2022, more than 2,400 people attended our in-person and virtual gatherings.

“The speakers you brought together under one roof were not only incredibly accomplished but thought-provoking and inspiring.”

2022 DAY OF TRANSLATION ATTENDEE

“I have also found much community at CAT, particularly at their annual Day of Translation, at which I was honored to deliver the keynote this year. The conversations and fellowship on these occasions are invariably generative and sustaining, much like CAT itself, a haven for translation and translators.”

JEREMY TIANG TRANSLATOR 2022 DAY OF TRANSLATION KEYNOTE SPEAKER

THE BOOKS

LINEA NIGRA

“A beautiful and lucid essay about the journey across motherhood seasons.”

— FERNANDA MELCHOR, THE GUARDIAN

“I am struck by how the humble act of translating literature from one language to another opens up a capacity for greater compassion and understanding.”

—DONOR

HUGS AND CUDDLES

“Wild, singular, and unapologetically original.”

—BUZZFEED

HORIZONS Through classroom lessons in translation, Poetry Inside Out nurtures the readers, writers, and translators of tomorrow.

Poetry Inside Out is founded on the idea that each student’s linguistic and cultural heritage is a resource for learning and discovery. We are committed to unlocking student creativity, celebrating diversity in every sense, and cultivating a sense of global citizenship. Current teaching materials include poems from more than 30 languages.

We are ecstatic to share that with your support we launched a Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship in 2022. Each year we will offer a select group of classroom teachers new opportunities to build skills in creative language instruction, giving them tools to generate dynamic discussions about poetry, culture, and personal expression. You’re helping build a community of experienced teachers around the country who will bring this transformative program to even more students in the years ahead.

“Poetry Inside Out has been an eyeopening experience for my students, but also for me as a teacher. The content of the poems is engaging, but the most exciting growth and learning happens when students are inquiring and collaborating with their classmates.”

ALBERT BURFORD 2022-23 PIO TEACHING FELLOW

“Many of my students are bilingual, so they are aware of some of the challenges presented by translating.

I love teaching poetry, and I frame my instruction of poetry as a game with rules to learn.”

BRANDON BARR 2022-23 PIO TEACHING FELLOW

THE NUMBERS Along with publishing six writers in English for the first time in 2022, we had our best year for book sales ever.

Even though production delays pushed two of our books to 2023, sales grew by 41% in 2022. As Two Lines Press approaches its 10-year anniversary, our catalog now includes more than 50 titles, more than half of which were written by women, and more than half by writers of color.

Your support means that we can continue to spotlight exceptional and overlooked writers, feature writing from underrepresented languages and regions, and nurture the important work of translators: half of the translators we published in 2022 were new to the field.

71 25 18

WORKS PUBLISHED

4

AWARD NOMINATIONS

COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN

LANGUAGES

18,852

2,405 EVENT ATTENDEES

BOOKS SOLD

137 66% IDENTIFY AS WOMEN

WRITERS & TRANSLATORS SHOWCASED

36% ARTISTS OF COLOR

31 EVENTS

167,734 READERS REACHED

*VIA BOOKS, EVENTS, AND ONLINE

Your partnership is vital to our mission. We hope you’ll pledge your support to finding new, overlooked, and underrepresented voices—and to making great world literature available to readers everywhere.

With your help in 2023, we will:

REACH 200,000 readers with books, events, and online offerings.

PUBLISH books by compelling contemporary authors from the Netherlands (Astrid Roemer’s On a Woman’s Madness) and Switzerland (Dorothee Elmiger’s Out of the Sugar Factory) and two books in the Calico Series: the first-ever collection of Swahili fiction in English translation and another dedicated to contemporary Franco-Caribbean writing.

HOST in-person book tours and virtual events that connect audiences around the world.

OFFER more than 800 students access to Poetry Inside Out’s

transformational poetry and translation lessons.

CATRANSLATION.ORG/DONATE CATRANSLATION.ORG/SUBSCRIPTIONS @CATRANSLATION @TWOLINESPRESS

catranslation.org