About the pairings - Translation Process - Poetry Translation Centre

Translation process

The translation pairings

We invite leading UK poets to translate with us for three reasons. We want them to use their skills on behalf of our international poets whose exceptional poetry will thus be translated to the highest possible standard. We want them to introduce their British audience to our international poets. And we hope that their own poetry will be affected by their immersion in another culture.

Each UK poet is chosen because they have some affinity with their international poet. Each works very closely with a language expert who provides them with literal translations and information on the poet’s social, cultural and literary context. Between them, after many drafts and much discussion, they negotiate their way to exciting and powerful new translations in English.

Read on about how to translate with us...

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In this section you can read about the translation process that we have developed. Find out more about the translation workshops we run, and see all the poems translated in our workshops. You can read about the poet-translator pairings that we arrange and about how to translate with us here.

Below you can find details of recent and forthcoming workshops. You can also see a full list of all our workshops events past and future in the News & Events section.

Events

10/12/2008 Workshop on Hindi Poetry: Amrita Bharati
We're delighted that Lucy Rosenstein will be returning to the PTC Workshops to translate the poetry of the Indian poet, Amrita Bharati.
11/06/2008 Workshop on Tajik Poetry: Farzaneh Khojandi, 11th June
For the third in our series of workshops concerning our upcoming World Poets' Tour, we were joined by Jo Shapcott and Narguess Farzad for a fascinating discussion about their translations of poems by Farzaneh Khojandi from Tajikistan.
28/05/2008 Workshop on Sudanese Poetry with Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi
This special workshop that the Sudanese poet, Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, attended with his translators, Sarah Maguire and Sabry Hafez, gave us a unique insight into his poetry.