BEST LITERARY TRANSLATIONS: WENDY CALL, DMITRI MANIN, IIZE DUARTE

The event will feature readings from their work, a Q&A, and wrap up with a book signing session.

About the Book

Guest edited by National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, Best Literary Translations 2026 features poetry and prose written in languages both widely spoken and critically endangered, brought into English by some of the most talented translators working today.

Compiled from over 450 submissions written in 62 original languages, the third edition of this groundbreaking annual anthology features a chorus of voices from across the globe. Collecting translated works from French to Xitsonga, Farsi to Korean, Ukrainian to Guaraní, Best Literary Translations 2026 is a vibrant collection of poetry, essays, and short fiction, and hybrid work, each accompanied by a translator’s note reflecting on the discovery, translation, and resonance of the original work. For enthusiasts of literature in translation and newcomers to global literary traditions alike, Best Literary Translations offers a glimpse into essential writing from many corners of the world.

About the Guests

Wendy Call (she/her) is the author, co-editor, or translator of ten books and two chapbooks, including the annual anthology she co-founded, Best Literary Translations. A recent Fulbright Scholar to Colombia and Translator in Residence at the University of Iowa, she teaches creative nonfiction in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program.

Dmitri Manin’s translations have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Best Literary Translations, and two antiwar anthologies, Disbelief and Dislocation. He co-translated and co-edited Firefly in a Box: An Anthology of Soviet Kid Lit. Manin’s translation of Nikolay Zabolotsky’s Columns was shortlisted for the NCBA and ALTA First Translation Prize.

Ilze Duarte’s translations appear in Latin American Literature Today, New England Review, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. Her translation of Marilia Arnaud’s story collection The Book of Affects was published in 2024. Her unpublished translation of Arnaud’s novel The Secret Bird was shortlisted for the inaugural David Bellos Literary Translation Prize.