Words Without Borders: The Commerce of World Literature

Mary and Peter R. Dallman 1951 Great Issues Lecture Why do some authors and books become known around the world, while others of equal merit languish in relative obscurity? This conversation will explore the role national cultural foundations play in exporting a country’s cultural production and the implications this has for less wealthy nations that don’t have such organizations. In many such instances, the responsibility falls to translators into English, placing them in the role of cultural gatekeepers and mediators. How do national and international prizes affect the literary eco-system? What is the importance of literature as a means of cultural exchange and soft diplomacy? And how will AI and LLMs impact this cultural dialogue? Panel participants: Maureen Freely is a writer with eight novels to her name. Well known as a translator of the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, she has also brought into English numerous twentieth century classics and works by Turkey’s rising stars. Her translation of Tezer Özlü's Cold Nights of Childhood won the 2024 NBCC Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. As Chair of the Translators Association and more recently as President and Chair of English PEN and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she has campaigned for writers and freedom of expression internationally. She teaches at the University of Warwick. Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German. Her translations include works by Walter Benjamin, Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Handke, and Montaigne. A Guggenheim, NEA and Berlin Prize Fellow, she was awarded the 2017 PEN Award for Translation. She is an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and curator of the Festival Neue Literature, New York City’s only German language literature festival. www.tesslewis.org. Allison Markin Powell (D’95) is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has been awarded a fellowship from the NEA and a residency from the Hawthornden Foundation, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations and co-translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Kaoru Takamura. She serves on the Board of Trustees of PEN America and is on the steering committee of the Literary Translators Division for the National Writers Union. Samantha Schnee (D’92) 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 debut novel, Luces de invierno, winner of the 2025 Sundial House Prize and forthcoming from Columbia University Press (2027). Free and open to the public, tickets required, reserve yours here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1983367492561?aff=oddtdtcreator This event will be recorded and livestreamed, register for the webinar here: https://dartmouth.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HZ3RdwbHTqSqklAEl2MO9Q More information here: https://home.dartmouth.edu/events/event?event=80695&begin=2026-04-29&offset=0&limit=10 Mary and Peter R. Dallman 1951 Great Issues Lecture, Made possible by a gift from Mary and Peter R. Dallman ’51.