ITD 2026: Brazilian Literature in Translation: Identities and Perspectives
This International Translation Day workshop will consider the question of how much of themselves a translator should, shouldn’t, and inevitably does bring to a translation.
Led by translator Lúcia Collischonn, a PEN Presents: Brazil winner, participants will engage in discussion and creative exercises to consider the localised and other perspectives translators bring to a project, how much they should aim to embody the author’s perspective, and how this is navigated when that perspective very much differs to their own. They will explore how much of their creative voice should come through in their translation, how they approach translating the intersecting experiences and identities present in a text, and how a translation can best convey a voice for readers in a different linguistic and cultural context.
This workshop is open to aspiring, emerging and established literary translators, and those interested in learning about the craft, with any relationship to Brazilian Portuguese. Participants are encouraged to bring a piece of text they are currently translating, or one they would like to translate.
Delivered in partnership with English PEN
Lúcia Collischonn
Lúcia Collischonn (de Abreu) is a gaúcha translator from Brazil, based in London. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Warwick and works primarily with contemporary Brazilian fiction and exophonic writing (specially in German and English).
Her published translations include work by Yoko Tawada, Michelle Buss, and Eltânia André, across poetry and prose. She translated Tawada’s Etüden im Schnee into Brazilian Portuguese (Todavia, 2019), and her English-language translations have appeared in No Man’s Land, Modern Poetry in Translation, and Qorpus. Her monograph, Literary Exophonic Translation (Cambridge University Press, 2025), explores multilingualism and the politics of literary translation and is central to her defense of L2 translation and translators. Apart from academic writing, she has also written about the mutt translator for the anthology Violent Phenomena (2022), published by Tilted Axis Press. She works across Portuguese, Spanish, English and German.
Her practice is shaped by her positionality as a Brazilian translator working between literary systems, with particular attention to multilingual writing and shifting narrative voices. She currently works in Research and Innovation Services at the University of Greenwich — which, among other things, helps keep the London rent paid — while continuing her literary translation practice.
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National Centre for Writing is located in the heart of Norwich city centre by the river, and is easily accessible by foot and by public transport. Plan your visit with our guide to the local area, including transport and nearby attractions, as well as full details on accessibility on site.
Accessibility
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