Author Boyd Tonkin wrote that, ‘To write, and to read, is to forever cross thresholds’. Translation opens up new vistas, refreshes language and fosters globalism.

In a world where English is the lingua franca, translation enables authors to speak to far-flung audiences. Boyd is joined by panellists including Anna Blasiak, who translated the acclaimed Holocaust journal Renia’s Diary, and Peter Filkins, translator, and biographer of H.G. Adler, to discuss the challenges, the joys and the pitfalls.

Anna Blasiak is a poet, translator and literature coordinator of the European Literature Network. She has recently co-translated Renia’s Diary by Renia Spiegel.

Peter Filkins is the translator of H.G. Adler’s trio of Holocaust novels and the author of Adler’s authorized biography, H.G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds. He teaches at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Ros Schwartz is a translator from French of fiction and non-fiction. In 2009 she was made a Chevalier d’Honneur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.