Translation Center Hosts Hybrid Event on March 1 to Launch "Metamorphoses" Literary Journal's Catalan Issue

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The University of Massachusetts Amherst Translation Center will host "Curating a Catalan Special Issue of Metamorphoses: A Conversation with Guillem Molla and Hillary Gardner" on Friday, March 1, noon to 1 p.m. The hybrid event, happening simultaneously on Zoom and in Herter Hall, Annex 17, celebrates the latest issue of “Metamorphoses: The Five College Journal on Literary Translation.”

During the event, award-winning scholars and translators Guillem Molla and Hillary Gardner will discuss their role as guest editors of a special double issue of “Metamorphoses” on contemporary Catalan literature. This issue marks the bilingual magazine’s first Catalan Special Issue in 25 years. Contributions to "Metamorphoses" are published in the original language in addition to the translations into English. The editorial and guest editors’ contributions are also in English.

The goal of the this issue is to introduce contemporary Catalan literature to English readers, support translators of Catalan literature, and provide a high-quality selection of translated works from Catalan to English. Guest editors Molla and Gardner have curated a panorama of the contemporary landscape of Catalan literature. Their efforts brought together more than 20 contributors from across the globe.

Molla is director of the Catalan Language Program and senior lecturer of Spanish at UMass Amherst. He received a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Culture, and degrees in both Catalan and Spanish studies from the Universitat de Girona. His scholarly interests include comparative literature, food anthropology, documentary film, and reception studies. He is the author of “Ramon Esquerra, geografia crítica d’un esperit comparatista” and the editor of the correspondence between Josep Pla and Jaume Vicens Vives, titled “L’hora de les decisions: Cartes 1950-1966.” He has edited five books by Catalan writers, including one by Prudenci Bertrana. He received a Batista i Roca Award from IPECC for his promotion of Catalan culture in the United States and is the founder of the UMass Amherst Sant Jordi Translation Contest. 

Gardner is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. She also attended the Universitat de Barcelona. Since 2010, Gardner has been translating and working with Catalan playwrights to bring their work to the international stage in English. Her play translations have been performed at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City and the Athens Epidaurus Festival in Greece, as well as been commissioned for subtitled performances at LaJoven theatre company in Madrid or Teatr Wybrzeże in Gdańsk, Poland among others. In addition to her freelance work as a translator, she has taught Catalan language and culture classes at UMass Amherst. 

Published in the spring and fall, "Metamorphoses" is the journal of the Five College Faculty Seminar on Literary Translation, a collaboration of the Five College Consortium which includes the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Smith College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College and Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. The journal was previously been hosted at Smith College and last published a Catalan Special Poetry Issue in 1997. Going forward, the journal will be published through the Translation Center of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Published in the spring and fall, the journal provides a forum for literary translation out of, and into, all languages, and for papers on the theory and practice of literary translation. The special Catalan issue includes poems, short stories, prose, theater, essay, and book reviews.

Since 1979, the Translation Center has been providing multilingual services from a research university setting connected to scholarship, professional organizations, and an international community. Led by Regina Galasso, an associate professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Program of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Translation Center is part of the UMass Amherst College of Humanities & Fine Arts.