Manchester In Translation

Z-Arts (Hulme)

International Mother Language Day 2019

Comma Press is a not-for-profit publisher specialising in the short story and fiction in translation. It is committed to a spirit of risk-taking and aims to put the short story at the heart of contemporary narrative culture. We publish collections by new and established authors, interdisciplinary collaborations between authors and experts, and translation commissions devised to identify cutting-edge (often marginalised) voices from across the world. Find us on Twitter and Instagram: @commapress and on Facebook: @commapressmcr.

In 2019 we hosted our first Manchester in Translation conference, a day of free workshops and talks offering advice and insight into the world of translation. Organised in partnership with Multilingual Manchester, it was an opportunity for budding translators – or those with a passion for working between languages – to develop practical skills for literary translation in particular, learn about the life of the translator and discover ways of getting published.

The morning session consisted of a keynote talk by award-winning writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn followed by a panel discussion about routes into literary translation, which featured Hahn in conversation with translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones, publisher and translator Stefan Tobler and publisher Ra Page.

The afternoon session was made up of literary translation workshops from Arabic, Chinese and Polish into English, led by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, Helen Wang and Antonia Lloyd-Jones respectively. Groups worked on collaborative translations of texts across different genres, guided by these experienced literary translators.