Translating Colombian Poetry: Spanish Translation Workshop with Velia Vidal and Annie McDermott, in partnership with Charco Press

This workshop will give participants a chance to get to grips with the nuts and bolts of literary translation, working together to produce an English version of a poem by the Colombian writer and activist Velia Vidal’s new collection Cuerpos de agua (Bodies of Water). Led by writer-translator duo Velia Vidal and Annie McDermott, participants will consider the questions that arise when translating across languages and cultures, and the different ways translators and authors can work together. No prior knowledge of Spanish is required.

Register via Eventbrite, here.

Annie McDermott is a translator working from Portuguese and Spanish. She has translated over a dozen books by writers including Velia Vidal, Selva Almada, Mario Levrero, and Lídia Jorge. She was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclán for her translation of Wars of the Interior by Joseph Zárate (Granta, 2021), and her work has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and the TA First Translation Prize. Annie also reviews books for the Times Literary Supplement, and will be teaching on this year’s Bristol Translates Summer School. 

Velia Vidal is a Colombian writer, journalist and reading promoter. For her book Tidal Waters she won the Afro-Colombian Authors Publication Grant awarded by Colombia's Ministry of Culture. She is the co-author of Oir somos rio (2019) and its bilingual German-Spanish edition. She was chosen as one of the 100 most influential and inspiring women in the world by the BBC in 2022 as a result of her efforts in reading promotion. She was a finalist for the Eccles Centre Writer’s Prize in 2023 and is a research associate for the British Museum. She is the founder and director of the Motete Educational and Cultural Corporation and the Chocó Reading and Writing Festival (FLECHO).