Megan McDowell's Lecture

 As someone who aspires to be a literary translator, Megan McDowell's lecture was extremely interesting and valuable. I thought that her objective of presenting translation from a professional perspective and as a creative endeavor is extremely important since it highlights that translation should be a viable career path. The questions she presented emphasized that there is still a lot of confusion and misconceptions surrounding what a literary translator actually does."Are translators writers?" seems to be a question that has appeared time after time in this program, and I have always felt uncertain about answering "yes". I appreciated that McDowell took the time to include this question and explain the similarities and differences between these two creative works and how translation should be valued as an independent activity. McDowell stated "I'm not "just" a translator", and through her lecture, she talked about finding the voice of the text and the characters and channeling that voice to create a translation strategy. This conveyed the amazing amount of talent and creativity that being a translator implies. 

I enjoyed as well that she shared her honest opinions, experiences, and examples of her own translation and career path. In doing so she showed how all translation goes through mediation and interpretation, often not only by the translator but by the author, marketing team, and editors of a publishing house. She also talked about how having communication with the authors has played a vital role in her own creative translating processes and how her input has changed the writing of the author as well. I enjoyed picturing translation as a part of such a dynamic and horizontal process between peers. Overall, I feel that her lecture debunked a lot of myths or negative ideas surrounding literary translation as a career, and I felt a bit more optimistic afterward which is something that I find extremely valuable :)

– Lia 

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