’Tain’t easy to hang out your shingle and earn your bread as a literary translator. That’s true for even some of the most acclaimed practitioners of the trade, as both Daniel Hahn and Misha Hoekstra can attest to.

Join the Association of Danish-English Literary Translators (DELT) for this event, where Daniel and Misha will discuss the challenges they’ve faced in making literary translation their calling. They’ll address the difficulties of establishing yourself in the profession, plus strategies to help you achieve some measure of financial and mental stability. They’ll also talk about mistakes they’ve made and doubts they still struggle with – as well as why the whole damn enterprise is worth the trouble.

Fellow translator Kyle Semmel will moderate. The conversation will run 55 minutes, including Q&A. You’re also invited to stick around afterward for informal questions and discussion.

About the translators: Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with eighty-something books to his name. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among many other honours. He is a past chair of the Society of Authors and has served on the boards of many organisations that work with literature and free expression. www.danielhahn.co.uk

Misha Hoekstra’s most recent translations are Wild Swims by Dorthe Nors and New Passengers by Tine Høeg. Honours include the Danish Translation Prize, a shortlisting for the International Booker, and a three-year literary fellowship from the Danish Arts Foundation. An American exile, Hoekstra lives in Aarhus, where he writes and performs songs under the name Minka Hoist. minkahoist.com

Moderator: Kyle Semmel, who has translated more than 15 books of literary fiction from Danish to English under the name K.E. Semmel, holds down a full-time job and only translates when the urge strikes him. His latest translation, co-translated with Martin Aitken, is Mathilde Walter Clark's Lone Star and is due out this summer from Deep Vellum. He is a former NEA Fellow in literary translation. kesemmel.com

This event is made possible by the generous support of the Danish Arts Foundation. To help us develop more great events like this, please consider making a donation to DELT. Learn more about DELT and its members by visiting danishtranslation.org.

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