Colloquy 19: Deep Vellum

Join World Poetry for the 19th installment of Colloquy: Translators in Conversation, spotlighting works published by Deep Vellum, with readings from translators Kevin Jerry Dunn, Elizabeth Lowe, and Samantha Schnee, followed by a Q&A facilitated by curator C. Francis Fisher.

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ELIZABETH LOWE translates works by Lusophone writers from Brazil, Portugal and Africa. She is the author of The City in Brazilian Literature (1982), co-author of Translation and the Rise of Inter-American Literature (with Earl E. Fitz, 2008), and Translating from the Portuguese: A Life Translated (2025). She is a professor in the New York University Master's program in Translation. She is a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Fulbright. The Brazilian Academy of Letters recognized her retranslation of Euclides da Cunha’s iconic Os Sertões (Backlands: The Canudos Campaign, 2010).

KEVIN GERRY DUNN is a Spanish/English translator and a ghostwriter. His translations include The Tyranny of Flies by Elaine Vilar Madruga, Easy Reading by Cristina Morales, Hungry for What by María Bastarós (one of the Guardian’s five best translated books of 2024), and works by Paul B. Preciado, Daniela Tarazona, Paco Cerdà, Ousman Umar, and Javier Castillo. He has received an English PEN Award, a PEN/Heim Grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, as well as arts residencies at the Banff Literary Translation Centre (Canada), Translation House Looren (Switzerland), and the Casa del Traductor (Spain).

SAMANTHA SCHNEE is the founding editor of Words Without Borders. Her translation of Carmen Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft (Deep Vellum, 2014) was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize, and she was the recipient of a 2023 National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellowship to translate Boullosa’s novel El complot de los románticos. Schnee also received a 2024 fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, where she translated Basque author Irati Elorrieta’s award-winning debut novel, Luces de invierno. Her first co-translation, with Will Morningstar, of Mariana Travacio’s All That Dies in April (World Editions) will be published in September 2025.

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