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After 26 years of producing literary translation programming without a permanent home, the Center for the Art of Translation is launching an ambitious $17 million capital campaign to open a literary and cultural center in Downtown San Francisco. The new space will become a cultural anchor for international voices, translators, and readers.

✨️ Legendary bookseller Paul Yamazaki calls it “the most significant literary event in San Francisco since the opening of City Lights.” ✨️

We’re transforming a historic building into a community hub, the West Coast’s only bookstore dedicated exclusively to translated literature for readers of all ages, and a place for professional development workshops with translators, writers, and teachers, along with after-school workshops for students.

Thanks to support from our core individual donors and philanthropic partners, we’ve raised $13.3 million toward our $17 million goal. Now we’re announcing our public phase of the capital campaign and calling on our community to help us raise the final $3.7 million to make this vision a reality and open our doors in 2027.

To learn more, watch the full video on our website. Link in bio!

#CATCampaign #CAT #LiteratureInTranslation

Have you heard? Xu Zechen’s NIGHT TRAIN, translated by Jeremy Tiang is one of CrimeReads’ Best International Fictions of May! Visit the link in our bio to read an excerpt of NIGHT TRAIN on @crimereads 🌕🚂

🚂 Choo Choo! the NIGHT TRAIN book tour is arriving soon! Join Jeremy Tiang for readings and conversations from their translation of Xu Zechen’s NIGHT TRAIN in SF, NYC, and Boston!🚂 See all the details at the link in our bio—hope to see you there 👋 #夜火车

Happy happy pub day to NIGHT TRAIN by Xu Zechen, translated by Jeremy Tiang! 🚬🚂

🌸Happy happy publication day to EXEMPLARY HUMANS by Juliana Leite, translated by Zoë Perry! 🌸

Here’s what The New Yorker says:

“Natalia, a lonely Brazilian centenarian, anchors this searching novel. ‘The problem with living too much,’ she reflects, ‘is that you witness a world that is being erased right in front of you, person by person.’ Natalia, with nowhere to be and no one to see, recognizes that ‘the past is the only future,’ and so she dwells on her life—on her roles as a daughter and a schoolteacher, as a wife and a mother, and, most important, as a political dissident who resisted Brazil’s military dictatorship. At the heart of Natalia’s account is the question of how one continues to exist. The book ventures an answer, one found in its very form: by transmitting memories, both our own and others’.”

The EXEMPLARY HUMANS tour is stopping in DC and BROOKLYN next week 👋

DC, join Juliana Leite, Zoë Perry, and Alex Brostoff at @lostcitybooks on April 23rd 📗

NYC and Brooklyn, we hope to see you at @communitybookstore on April 24th with Juliana Leite and Catherine Lacey 💚

The EXEMPLARY HUMANS tour is stopping in DC and BROOKLYN next week 👋

DC, join Juliana Leite, Zoë Perry, and Alex Brostoff at @lostcitybooks on April 23rd 📗

NYC and Brooklyn, we hope to see you at @communitybookstore on April 24th with Juliana Leite and Catherine Lacey 💚

Bay Area, save the date! Launch Party for EXEMPLARY HUMANS next week! 💚 Brazilian author @leite__juliana and translator @zoeaperry will be in conversation with @yalitzaf at @therubysf.

🗓️ April 21
⏱️ 7:00 pm
📍 The Ruby

Juliana Leite makes her English-language debut with this ambitious novel about one woman's past and all of our futures, exploring the quirks of memory, and the delights and horrors of aging.

RSVP for address at the link in our bio!

EXEMPLARY HUMANS (forthcoming on 4/21/26) is going on tour! Join author Juliana Leite and translator Zöe Perry this April in San Francisco, Washington DC, and Brooklyn!

Happy publication day to I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: Ghost Stories, Edited by Sarah Coolidge!

The Chicago Review of Books calls it “An essential collection for anyone interested in the many ways our past haunts our present.”

Asymptote says, “The stories . . . expand, enrich, and complicate notions of the phantasmagorical.”

And Carmen Maria Machado says, “As surprising as it is unsettling—I Was Alive Here overflows with eerie pleasures.”

👻

Bay Area: You're invited to our haunted reading room to celebrate the launch of I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: GHOST STORIES on Thursday March 19, 7 pm 👻

@batwitchghost, @cuenteroproductions, and the Center for the Art of Translation teamed up to create an artist-made haunted reading room built into the lobby of the @kalwpublicmedia studio on 220 Montgomery St. in downtown San Francisco.

📚️🎤 On March 19 at 7 PM, @sabrijasz will read her translation of “The Loose-Haired Women,” followed by a conversation with @twolinespress Calico Series Editor @s.coolidge.

Inspired by the short story “The Loose-Haired Women” by Salomat Vafo, translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published in I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE by Two Lines Press, this installation reinvents the classic ghost story, abandoning tired tropes to confront modern political horrors and blurring the lines between the living and the dead.

Link in bio to RSVP for the March 19 launch party. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be served.

*The Haunted Reading Room will also be open to the public March 19–March 21, 11:00 am–5:00 pm. If you miss the launch party, stop by Friday or Saturday to check out the installation.

Bay Area: You're invited to our haunted reading room to celebrate the launch of I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: GHOST STORIES on Thursday March 19, 7 pm 👻

@batwitchghost, @cuenteroproductions, and the Center for the Art of Translation teamed up to create an artist-made haunted reading room built into the lobby of the @kalwpublicmedia studio on 220 Montgomery St. in downtown San Francisco.

📚️🎤 On March 19 at 7 PM, @sabrijasz will read her translation of “The Loose-Haired Women,” followed by a conversation with @twolinespress Calico Series Editor @s.coolidge.

Inspired by the short story “The Loose-Haired Women” by Salomat Vafo, translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published in I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE by Two Lines Press, this installation reinvents the classic ghost story, abandoning tired tropes to confront modern political horrors and blurring the lines between the living and the dead.

Link in bio to RSVP for the March 19 launch party. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be served.

*The Haunted Reading Room will also be open to the public March 19–March 21, 11:00 am–5:00 pm. If you miss the launch party, stop by Friday or Saturday to check out the installation.

Bay Area: You're invited to our haunted reading room to celebrate the launch of I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: GHOST STORIES on Thursday March 19, 7 pm 👻

@batwitchghost, @cuenteroproductions, and the Center for the Art of Translation teamed up to create an artist-made haunted reading room built into the lobby of the @kalwpublicmedia studio on 220 Montgomery St. in downtown San Francisco.

📚️🎤 On March 19 at 7 PM, @sabrijasz will read her translation of “The Loose-Haired Women,” followed by a conversation with @twolinespress Calico Series Editor @s.coolidge.

Inspired by the short story “The Loose-Haired Women” by Salomat Vafo, translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published in I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE by Two Lines Press, this installation reinvents the classic ghost story, abandoning tired tropes to confront modern political horrors and blurring the lines between the living and the dead.

Link in bio to RSVP for the March 19 launch party. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be served.

*The Haunted Reading Room will also be open to the public March 19–March 21, 11:00 am–5:00 pm. If you miss the launch party, stop by Friday or Saturday to check out the installation.

We’re pleased to announce that Ally Le is the winner of the 2026 Stevns Translation Prize!

Congratulations to Ally and finalists Lukas Tuyet Tung, Nguyễn Thị Bích Trâm, and Chau Anh Nguyen. And thank you to all the talented folks who applied—we had 67 submissions this year, and judges Nguyễn An Lý, Vi Khi Nao, and Deborah Smith were impressed by the range of approaches to what was a challenging excerpt.

As this year’s prizewinner, Ally will translate Maik Cây’s Bảo Tàng Lông [Museum of Hair], to be published by Peirene Press (UK) and Two Lines Press (US) in 2027. She will receive mentorship from acclaimed translator Nguyễn An Lý – who will support her in translating her first full-length work of fiction – and a four-week retreat in the French Pyrenees.

We’re pleased to announce that Ally Le is the winner of the 2026 Stevns Translation Prize!

Congratulations to Ally and finalists Lukas Tuyet Tung, Nguyễn Thị Bích Trâm, and Chau Anh Nguyen. And thank you to all the talented folks who applied—we had 67 submissions this year, and judges Nguyễn An Lý, Vi Khi Nao, and Deborah Smith were impressed by the range of approaches to what was a challenging excerpt.

As this year’s prizewinner, Ally will translate Maik Cây’s Bảo Tàng Lông [Museum of Hair], to be published by Peirene Press (UK) and Two Lines Press (US) in 2027. She will receive mentorship from acclaimed translator Nguyễn An Lý – who will support her in translating her first full-length work of fiction – and a four-week retreat in the French Pyrenees.

Open call for Day of Translation panel submissions. Mark your calendar for our 7th annual Day of Translation at the @center4fiction, September 24, 2026! 🌟

Day of Translation is a day-long celebration of language and literature, with dynamic discussions on translation.

The Center for the Art of Translation will offer round-trip transportation to New York, lodging, and honoraria to accepted panelists.

Interested in proposing a panel? Check our proposal guidelines and submit your idea via the Opportunities page of our website by Friday, May 1st. Link in bio!