Translators Aloud – Translators reading translations

Translators Aloud is a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, for both published and unpublished works.

We provide a space for translators to read their own work and a positive platform for sharing great literature, read aloud by the translators themselves.

We showcase the world’s best new and classic books, poetry, plays, and short stories, presented by the talented people who translate them.

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NOW WE ARE SIX! We can't believe we've been going for six years. Thank you so much all for your support and creativity, and here's to many more years of celebrating literature in translation.
Charlie & Tina x

And big thanks for Frank Wynne for making this video for us!

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Translators Aloud celebrate six years in May 2026!

6 hours ago

One afternoon in May, 8 year old Ilaria gets into the car with her dad, expecting to go out to dinner with her mum and sister. Instead, she is taken across the border, on a whirlwind journey around Italy, from Trieste to Rome and Sicily, sleeping in roadside hotels, singing to the radio, and fearing her often drunk, but loving father. Torn between her life in Geneva with her mother and the seemingly never ending Italian road trip with her father, Ilaria doesn’t know who to side with in her parents’ acrimonious separation. Throughout her travels, Ilaria meets new faces, learns how to light a cigarette, discovers when is best to keep quiet around her father, and finds comfort in her lovable teddy bear Birillo. Ilaria’s voice is singular and powerful; while her travels through Italy and the cast of characters around her create an unforgettable image of Italy . This deeply moving novel explores the fear and confusion felt during this chaotic kidnapping, through the dreamlike eyes of the young girl. Intimate and poignant, Ilaria follows the life of a girl who is learning to navigate the world on her own. “A propulsive coming-of-age story set against the political violence of Italy’s Years of Lead… Zalapì sketches a clear and sensitive portrait of her young narrator… This leaves a mark.” Publishers Weekly “A nuanced portrayal of a child’s lost years with a flawed and irresponsible parent.” Kirkus Reviews “The story captivates the reader with a precision as minimalist as it is disarming.” Vogue France “A deeply moving novel about family love and its contradictions, the end of innocence, and the disobedience of a young girl looking for freedom.” Elle France “A story tinged with dread but, above all, bursting with sensitivity.” Le Monde “In a breathtaking novel, Gabriella Zalapi captures the sensations - nothing but the sensations, all the sensations - of a childhood torn between two parents.” La Tribune “Gabriella Zalapi has the art of telling her own story as a smokescreen.” Le Nouvel Obs “Her writing is all about intimacy in strangely charming books, juggling in all languages between limpidity and skilful blurring. Gabriella Zalapi or modesty incarnate.” Télérama "Gabriella Zalapì's achievement is to make palpable the feelings and inner world of this child, who looks around her with such maturity and gravity. " Sandrine Rovere, Le Regard Libre "Gabriella Zalapi places her protagonist as narrator of her destiny... The book is at once terribly beautiful and anguishing." Mademoiselle Lit "I was completely captivated by this story, its atmosphere, and its writing. A true favourite".” Joelle Books "Through [Illaria’s] lucid gaze and timid child’s voice, we are told about a painful episode in her life directly inspired by the author’s own experience.” Anna Pheulpin, Zone Critique BUY THE BOOK: https://www.lindeneditions.com/illaria-or-the-conquest-of-disobedience Translator bio Since ‘discovering’ the first book she was to translate, award-winning translator Adriana Hunter has brought more than 100 books to English-language readers and still enjoys the buzz of finding promising new francophone authors. Her recent work includes the international bestseller The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier and three volumes of Sapiens: A Graphic History based on Yuval Noah Harari’s global phenomenon, Sapiens. She relishes the challenges of translating anything from intricate literary fiction to the goofy antics and word games of Asterix and Obelix. She won the 2011 Scott Moncrieff Prize for her translation of Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi (Peirene Press, 2010) and the 2013 French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Hervé Le Tellier’s Electrico W, and her translations have been shortlisted twice for the International Booker Prize. Author bio Winner of the Prix Femina des Lycéens 2024, Prix Millepages 2024 and Prix Blù Jean-Marc Roberts 2024. Artist and writer Gabriella Zalapì was born (1972) to an English-Italian-Swiss family in Milan, and now lives in Paris. Her previous novel Antonia (2019) received the Grand Prix de l’héroïne Madame Figaro, and the Prix Biblomedia. Zalapì uses her own family history as the basis for her work, taking photographs, archive material, and memoirs and composing them into a disquieting play of history and fiction. Adriana Hunter, translator, said: "I so loved translating Ilaria that I was tempted to slow down towards the end – I just didn’t want to be parted from this endearing, bewildered child. I really admire Gabriella Zalapi’s restrained storytelling: the book is a masterclass in ‘show don’t tell’."

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Adriana Hunter reads from Gabriella Zalapì's ILARIA, OR THE CONQUEST OF DISOBEDIENCE (2026)

23 Apr, 2026 12:47 pm

A woman replays her abandonment by her mother, who is sometimes addressed as a male mother-god. She is also abandoned by her lover, to whom she is in thrall. She tries repeatedly to make or receive phone calls with the beloved figures, without success. She waits for their letters and imagines their contents. In a dream-like, torrid sequence, suffering, fear, fatigue and imperfection are apostrophised. Forgetting is examined and toyed with from every angle. Mythical hybrid creatures are invoked: a snake-headed lion, wolf-snakes, a wolf-peacock. the narrator speaks from multiple perspectives to express powerful anguish. According to Morag Shiach, "The narrator explores the paralysing violence and fear produced by her relation to dominant forms of subjectivity, with an intensity that forces her to challenge and reject the identities available to her" (1991, 91). For Verena Andermatt Conley, "Angst writes both a detachment and an arrival. moves away from a masculine writing scene toward a feminine one [...] There, another writing, conjoining body and thought, will be." (1991, 94). Translator bio Sophie Lewis is a London-born translator and editor. Working from French and Portuguese, she has translated books by Marcel Aymé, Josephine Baker, Hélène Cixous, Annie Ernaux, Violette Leduc, Noémi Lefebvre, Nastassja Martin, Françoise Sagan, Leïla Slimani, Stendhal and Jules Verne; also Victor Heringer, Patrícia Melo, Sheyla Smanioto and Micheliny Verunschk. With Gitanjali Patel, she co-founded Shadow Heroes translation workshops. Lewis’s translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. In 2022, she won the French-American Foundation’s prize for non-fiction translation. Author bio Hélène Cixous, born 1937, is a French writer, playwright and literary critic. During her academic career, she was primarily associated with the Centre universitaire de Vincennes, which she co-founded in 1969. Known for her experimental writing style and great versatility as a feminist writer and thinker, she has written more than seventy books. BUY THE BOOK: https://www.waterstones.com/book/angst/helene-cixous/sophie-lewis/9781739371777

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YouTube Video VVVqYXE5T1Nwb0Vlb2hQbUs4WlQtQzd3Lm5WTFJEeXlzSW5j

Sophie Lewis reads from Hélène Cixous' ANGST (Silver Press, 2026)

16 Mar, 2026 12:32 pm

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