Translator Episodes

My guest for today is Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma — an American writer, poet, and translator who has spent more than two decades of his life inside the Tamil language. Thomas first arrived in Madurai in 1998, almost by accident, planning to study Spanish and ecological ethics, and instead found himself apprenticed to a remarkable teacher, Dr. K. V. Ramakoti.


That apprenticeship reshaped his entire life, drawing him from spoken Tamil into the world of Sangam poetry, Avvaiyar, and eventually the Ti...

Today we are talking to Iswarya who translated Tamil Writer Jeyamohan's short story collection - 'One Million Footsteps' into English.


In One Million Footsteps, We meet Ousepachan, a jaded, maverick ex-police officer with razor-sharp wit. He turns his gaze inward, dwelling on the complex minds that commit crimes. We trace transgressions back to raw human drives: love, desire, ego, and power.


The Story Collection is layered with history and myth, challenging us to confront deeper truths. To...

Daniel's new book, If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, is part love letter, part close reading, and part globe-trotting investigation — one that took him from Budapest theatre seats to Zoom calls with translators working in everything from Swahili to Bangla. It's a book that asks: when you change everything, can you still keep everything?

published in April 2026 - If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation by Daniel Hahn is a non-fiction book exploring how Shakespeare's plays are translated, adapted, and re-imagined for global audiences. It investigates the challenges of translating Shakespearean language, wordplay, and poetry across different cultures and languages.

"Welcome to Harshaneeyam Podcast. Today, we enter the intricate, wickedly humorous, and deeply observant world of Swedish author Ia Genberg. Joining us is the acclaimed translator Kira Josefsson, whose English translation of the short story collection - Small Comfort, has been longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.


Kira is no stranger to Genberg’s sharp prose; she also translated the 2024 International Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Details. In Small Comfort, the author shift...

"Welcome to Harshaneeyam. Today, we delve into a powerful work of Bulgarian literature that has recently made its way to the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist: 'She Who Remains' by Renée Karbash translated into English by Izidora Angel.


The novel explores the life of a 'sworn virgin'—a woman who, according to an ancient Balkan tradition, takes a vow of celibacy and lives as a man to gain the rights and status reserved for men in a patriarchal society. However, Karbash moves beyond the...

"Can a work of art ever truly be washed clean of the hands that funded it? Is it possible to create a masterpiece in the shadow of a monster? Today, we are exploring these haunting questions through the lens of The Director—the latest novel by the brilliant German author Daniel Kehlmann and translated into English by Ross Benjamin. Set against the harrowing backdrop of the late 1930s and 1940s, the story follows the legendary film director G.W. Pabst as he returns to Nazi-occupied Austria.

"In this episode, Harshaneeyam Host Anil sits down with Sruthi, a long-time listener of the show, to talk about the launch of the website, harshaneeyam.com.


They discuss what’s coming next for the podcast and explore how the site serves as a complete library for all episodes. Now, it is easy to find favorite shows by category, leave detailed reviews, and sign up for the newsletter to stay updated.


Head over to www.harshaneeyam.com and take a look around—explore everything the platform has ...

Guest for this Episode is Writer, Translator Lin King -


Lin King is a writer and translator based in Taipei and New York


Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Boston Review, and Joyland, among others, and has received the PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.


Translations include the graphic novel series The Boy from Clearwater by Yu Pei-Yun and Zhou Jian-Xin.


Her debut novel, Weeb, is forthcoming from Holt.


Her translation of the novel Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-...

In this episode we have with us Padma Viswanathan.

Padma Viswanathan is a Canadian-American writer and translator.

Her novels have been published in eight countries and shortlisted for the PEN USA Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and others. She has published short fiction, essays and translations in Granta, The Boston Review, BRICK, and elsewhere. Full-length translations include São Bernardo, by Brazilian novelist Graciliano Ramos and Where We Stand, by Djamila Ribeiro. Her most recent no...

Today we have David Mckay on Harshaneeyam Podcast.


Born and educated in the United States, David McKay is an award-winning translator of Dutch fiction and non-fiction


He holds degrees in philosophy, linguistics and international relations, and has lived in and around The Hague since 1997.


His literary translations include War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2017, and Multatuli’s classic Max Havelaar , as well as contributions...

Today's Guest on Harshaneeyam is Ruth Martin.

Ruth Martin studied English literature before gaining a PhD in German

She has been translating fiction and non-fiction books since 2010, by authors ranging from Joseph Roth and Hannah Arendt to Volker Weidermann and Shida Bazyar.

She has taught translation at the University of Kent and the Bristol Translates summer school, and is a former co-chair of the Society of Authors Translators Association.

She translated Shida Bazyar’s The Nights Are Quie...

Our guest for today is Jordan Stump.

Jordan Stump has translated many authors into English from French, including Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, and Honoré de Balzac

His translation of Jardin des Plantes by Claude Simon won the 2001 French-American Foundation translation prize, and was named a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Arts and Letters for his work by the French government 2006.

His English language translations of works by Marie NDiaye have been nominated for the International Boo...

Today’s Guest, Charlotte Mandell has translated over 50 books of fiction, poetry and philosophy from French. Her translations include works by Marcel Proust, Maurice Blanchot, Abdelwahab Meddeb and Jean-Luc Nancy. Her translation of Compass by Mathias Énard was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2017 and was the recipient of the 2018 ALTA National Translation Award in Prose. She was named a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Arts and Letters for her work by the French government and ...

Today's Guest, Antonella Lettieri is a translator working between English and Italian. Her translations include Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter (Foundry Editions, 2024), Roberta Recchia’s All That Is Left of Life (Dialogue Books, 2025), and Matteo Melchiorre’s The Duke (Foundry Editions, 2025), which is currently longlisted for the International Booker Prize. She was the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentee for Italian in 2023 and won the John Dryden Translation ...

Today we have Suchitra Ramachandran with us to discuss her newly translated novel, The Daughter of Kumari. We will also explore her experience translating the works of Jeyamohan and the first-ever Tamil Literary Festival to be held outside India, which is coming up in April 2026 in New York.

Originally written in Tamil as Kumari Thuraivi by the writer Jeyamohan, this novel tells the story of bringing the deity Meenakshi back to Madurai from her temporary abode in coastal Kerala.

Suchitra write...

In this Episode, Mark Hutchinson talks about his journey of translation and about the novel ‘ A leopard Skin hat’ written by Anne Serre.

Mark Hutchinson was born in London and lives in Paris

Among his many translations from the French are René Char’s Hypnos: Notes from the French Resistance and The Inventors and Other Poems, and Emmanuel Hocquard’s The Library at Trieste and The Gardens of Sallust. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Times Literary Supplement and ...

Today we have Jason Grunebaum speaking to us about his stint with the Redcross, Hindi to English translations and the salt project.

Jason is an Instructional Professor at the university of Chicago teaching Hindi and Translation.

He is also the co-director for The SALT Project which supports and promotes English-language translations of literature written in the languages of South Asia.

Jason has book-length translations from Hindi include Uday Prakash’s The Girl with the Golden Parasol, The W...

In this episode Deepa Bhasthi spoke about her literary journey and about translating the short story collection which won the International booker prize this year - 'Heart Lamp'.

Deepa is a writer and an award-winning literary translator working in Kannada and English. Her cultural criticism, essays, columns and journalism have been published extensively in India and internationally, including in The Paris Review, Himal Southasian, ArtReview, MOMUS, The Guardian, MOLD, Hyperallergic, The Carava...

Today we are talking to Sophie Hughes as a part of our International Booker 2025 series. her translation of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection  was short listed. Its the first book she translated from Italian into English. Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the 10-year history International Booker Prize. Her translations have been longlisted or shortlisted for the International Booker Prize five times.

She is a judge for the Int...

Today we have Suchitra Ramachandran talking about Literary translation in India and Mozhi Prize Anthology – I, A House Without Cats and Other Stories Published by SouthSide Books this year. Founded in 2022 by translators Suchitra Ramachandran and Priyamvada Ramkumar, Mozhi is an initiative that aims to bring together literatures from various Indian languages and provide a platform for critical discourse.

Mozhi Prize was instituted in the same year with a mission to discover and inspire new tale...

In this Episode - Icelandic Translator Victoria Cribb talks about the Literary Scene in Iceland, Challenges in Translating Crime fiction, the Author Sjon and the novel 'The Blue Fox' .

Victoria Cribb grew up in England. She completed a B.A at the University of Cambridge in 1987, an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies at University College London in 1990, and a B.Phil. in Icelandic as a Foreign Language at the University of Iceland in 1994.

Between 1984 and 2002, she spent much of her time travelling,...

This is the 100th Episode on Harshaneeyam's Translator Series.

Michael Hofmann is a German-born poet, translator, and critic. The Guardian has described him as "arguably the world's most influential translator of German into English"

Hofmann was born in Freiburg into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist Gert Hofmann. Hofmann's family first moved to Bristol in 1961, and later to Edinburgh. He was educated at Winchester College, and then studied English Literatu...

"In this episode, we have Ros Schwartz discussing TILT—the Telugu to English Online Translation workshop that she is conducting. It aims to develop Telugu-to-English literary translators. Telugu publishers Chaaya and Aju from Hyderabad, India, have collaborated on this unique initiative.

Ros discussed the workshop's modalities, the guest speakers who have graced the sessions, and the future paths for the mentees who have attended.

Ros Schwartz is an award-winning translator from French. Over t...

"Today on Harshaneeyam, we welcome Nancy Naomi Carlson, a renowned poet, translator, and musician. We delve into her profound connection between poetry and personal loss, exploring how translation serves as a powerful tool for healing. As a musician, Carlson shares insights on the profound influence of musicality in her translation process. We also discuss her collaboration with Seagull Books and her acclaimed translations, including the recent <em>SOLIO</em> by Samira Negrouche. Carlson is a re...