MFA in Literary Translation
Established in 2019, the BU Master of Fine Arts in Literary Translation provides intensive training for those interested in a career as a literary translator. Working with faculty who are themselves professional translators, students will engage with the theory and practice of literary translation while refining their stylistic and linguistic skills and expanding their knowledge of the field of Translation Studies
The priority application deadline is February 15, 2025. Any applications received after this date will be reviewed on a space available basis.
About the Program
Located in the heart of Boston’s vibrant literary scene, the MFA program is built around BU’s storied literary translation seminar, which brings leading literary translators to Boston to talk technique with our students. The two-semester curriculum includes courses in translation history and theory, language-specific workshops, and advanced literary study. A collaborative workshop brings together students translating from different languages. For the capstone project, students work closely with faculty mentors to produce a publishable translation of a text of their choosing. The BU MFA in Literary Translation is the only program of its kind to include a specially designed course in English style for translators.
The MFA program is administered by the Department of World Languages & Literatures and draws on faculty expertise in the Departments of Classics, Romance Studies, English, and Creative Writing. For Fall 2024, we are accepting students translating into English from twelve languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Ancient Greek, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Persian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish.
Three of our ’24 graduates: Maria Sandoval, Dina Famin, and Lia Galvan
Welcome coffee for our 24/25 cohort.
What can I expect to learn in the program?
Successful students graduating with an MFA in Literary Translation will demonstrate:
♦ a broad knowledge of the history of translation and Translation Studies as a discipline, and of the main ideas and debates in the field, from antiquity to the present;
♦ an advanced ability to translate texts of different genres and levels of difficulty;
♦ the ability to evaluate translations critically and to pinpoint the methods and strategies used by a translator in order to achieve different effects (e.g., domestication, foreignization, rusticization, archaism, etc.)
Students interested in acquiring experience in publishing may apply for one of two competitive funded summer internships following their year in the program.
What can I do with BU’s MFA in Literary Translation?
Graduates of MFA in Literary Translation will be equipped with the skills, connections, and portfolio to find translation work and to pursue a wide variety of international careers, not only in literary but also in technical, legal, and humanitarian fields. They will be well qualified to pursue literary careers or work as editors in literary publishing, as many Boston University Creative Writing MFA and PhD graduates have gone on to do, including Jhumpa Lahiri, Don Share, Zayd Dohrn, and Aviya Kushner, to name a few.
Although the Literary Translation MFA is fairly new, we can already boast of the successes of our graduates. Some have gotten jobs with publishers while others have gone on to PhD programs and quite a number have published translations.
Evan Laufman (’25, Japanese) was hired as an editorial assistant by Yen Press, a New York publisher of manga, comics, and graphic novels.
Maggie Vlietstra (’22, French), was hired as Education Program Coordinator by Words without Borders, after having done a BU-sponsored summer internship there. Congratulations, Maggie!
Josh Dunn (’22, Spanish), is currently pursuing a PhD in Spanish Literature at Boston University. He has also published three translations from Spanish of writings by Emiliano Monge. The first, “Let’s Talk About Me,” appeared in Exchanges, a literary journal based at the University of Iowa. The second story, titled “At the Precise Moment,” was published in Observatorio, a co-publication between Harvard and Instituto Cervantes. Lastly, Josh also worked on a fragment of Monge’s novel Just Before the End, for which he’s seeking publishing. Well done, Josh!
Alejandro López (’22, Spanish) is also a pursuing a PhD in Spanish Literature at Boston University. He has published three poems by Alfonsina Storni, co-translated with Silas Mullins (BU Creative Writing MFA, ’20), through Observatorio (Cervantes Institute at Harvard).
Dina Famin (’24, Russian) will be starting a PhD program at Brown in Slavic Studies. Congratulations!
Lianbi Ji (’23, Chinese) is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.
Sharon Sawan (’22, Arabic) works in Arabic and has published a translation of a excerpt from a novel by Souhaib Ayoub, Man of Satin, with Words without Borders. You can read it here. She now works at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education’s Middle East Professional Learning Initiative.
Lia Galvan Lisker (’24, Spanish) has been busy writing after doing a BU-sponsored internship at Words Without Borders. She published an article with Words Without Borders about contemporary Mexican Women Writers. She has also published two translations of stories by Lorea Canales. The first, “Sunset,” appeared in Lunch Ticket, and the second, “The Huisache,” in Observatorio.
Ibrahim Fawzy (’25, Arabic) was already a published translator before coming to our program and has only continued working hard since joining the MFA program – you can find a full list of his numerous publications and awards on his website.
Looking forward to many more success stories!
For those desiring further graduate study, the MFA also provides an exceptionally strong foundation from which to begin a PhD in comparative literature, language & literature, or an area studies or social science field.
Whom can I ask for more details?
For more information, click the red button below or contact the program director, Anna Elliott at aelliott@bu.edu.