Michelle Mirabella 2026-10-23T01:41:26-04:00 Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com Shortlisted for 2026 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/shortlisted-for-2026-spain-usa-foundation-translation-award/index.html 2026-10-22T10:52:43-04:00 Michelle's translation of The Cracks We Bear by Catalina Infante was shortlisted for the 2026 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award. The Award recognizes translations into English of literary prose works written originally by authors of Spanish (Spain) nationality. What the judges had to say: "An English-language debut… ]]>

Michelle's translation of The Cracks We Bear by Catalina Infante was shortlisted for the 2026 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award. The Award recognizes translations into English of literary prose works written originally by authors of Spanish (Spain) nationality. What the judges had to say:

"An English-language debut for both author and translator, Catalina Infante’s semi-autobiographical The Cracks We Bear offers a complex portrait of pregnancy and motherhood. In crystalline vignettes, the narrator reflects on her tumultuous relationship with her late mother, musing on her communist mother’s exile in Cuba and France, and her own fraught early months of motherhood. Mirabella’s English rendering is outstanding for its effortless beauty and elegance, accompanied by a passionate and insightful afterword that illuminates how a translator’s lived experience can enrich her translation."

]]> Reading at Postcard Bookshop Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/reading-at-postcard-bookshop/index.html 2026-09-15T14:23:00-04:00 On October 22, 2026, Michelle will be reading from her translation of Catalina Infante's "A Body" as part of the Best Literary Translations offsite reading during the American Literary Translators Association annual conference, alongside eleven fellow translators. "A Body" is one of eight stories from Infante's… ]]>

On October 22, 2026, Michelle will be reading from her translation of Catalina Infante's "A Body" as part of the Best Literary Translations offsite reading during the American Literary Translators Association annual conference, alongside eleven fellow translators. "A Body" is one of eight stories from Infante's debut story collection Todas somos una misma sombra (Neón Ediciones). The reading will take place at Postcard Bookshop in Portland, Oregon

]]> Obituary Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/obituary/index.html 2026-06-28T14:27:00-04:00 By Dainerys Machado Vento (tr. Michelle Mirabella) Columbia Journal, 2026 Part of a sequence of dream writings, “Obituary” exists in memory where dreams and reality blur. Machado Vento drops readers in, recreating this sensation of dreams lacking context, and leaves us wondering about where the… ]]> Bouqet of white flowers on dark background

By Dainerys Machado Vento (tr. Michelle Mirabella)

Columbia Journal, 2026

Part of a sequence of dream writings, “Obituary” exists in memory where dreams and reality blur. Machado Vento drops readers in, recreating this sensation of dreams lacking context, and leaves us wondering about where the dreams end and reality begins.

]]> The Cracks We Bear Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/the-cracks-we-bear/index.html 2025-11-04T09:27:00-05:00

Shortlisted for the 2026 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award, The Cracks We Bear opens as a story about new motherhood. Soon, however, it reveals itself to be an exploration of memory and trauma as Laura starts to recall her childhood in Chile. Born in exile to staunchly communist parents, she returns to Chile with her mother after the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship. In the fledgling democracy she grows up in, topics of capitalism and communism are ever present. Laura’s reflections, born from personal experience, are interwoven with raw and honest memories of her family life. Borrowing elements from the Bildungsroman, and pulling from the Latin American short story tradition, Catalina Infante recounts Laura’s past in vignettes. Piece by piece, the short chapters come together like a reconstructed vase, bearing its cracks.

]]> Cover art showing a woman with light shining through a crack in her chest

By Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella)

World Editions, 2025

Shortlisted for the 2026 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award, The Cracks We Bear opens as a story about new motherhood. Soon, however, it reveals itself to be an exploration of memory and trauma as Laura starts to recall her childhood in Chile. Born in exile to staunchly communist parents, she returns to Chile with her mother after the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship. In the fledgling democracy she grows up in, topics of capitalism and communism are ever present. Laura’s reflections, born from personal experience, are interwoven with raw and honest memories of her family life. Borrowing elements from the Bildungsroman, and pulling from the Latin American short story tradition, Catalina Infante recounts Laura’s past in vignettes. Piece by piece, the short chapters come together like a reconstructed vase, bearing its cracks.

]]> Interview on The Three Percent Podcast Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/interview-on-the-three-percent-podcast/index.html 2025-10-15T14:37:00-04:00 On October 16, 2025, Michelle was interviewed alongside her publisher, Christine Swedowsky, by Chad Post on The Three Percent Podcast, "a weekly(ish) conversation about new books, the publishing scene, international literature in translation, and many other random rants and raves." The episode featured Michelle speaking… ]]>

On October 16, 2025, Michelle was interviewed alongside her publisher, Christine Swedowsky, by Chad Post on The Three Percent Podcast, "a weekly(ish) conversation about new books, the publishing scene, international literature in translation, and many other random rants and raves." The episode featured Michelle speaking out her debut book-length translation, The Cracks We Bear by Catalina Infante, and her publisher Christine talking about World Editions 3.0.

Listen to the episode here.

]]> A Nostalgia For Desire Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/a-nostalgia-for-desire/index.html 2025-03-14T14:32:00-04:00 By Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella) World Literature Today, 2026 Employing extended apostrophe and dual timelines, Infante explores what happens to desire, sexuality, and women’s relationship with their bodies in the context of family life, in the wake of marriage and raising children. The… ]]> Catalina Infante on the cover of World Literature Today

By Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella)

World Literature Today, 2026

Employing extended apostrophe and dual timelines, Infante explores what happens to desire, sexuality, and women’s relationship with their bodies in the context of family life, in the wake of marriage and raising children. The story is told through the eyes of a mother as she watches her daughters’ youth and passion and yearns for the vitality of her own.

]]> An Island Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/an-island/index.html 2024-06-14T14:35:00-04:00 By Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella) Nimrod International Journal, 2024 An epistolary narrative employing extended apostrophe as a literary device. The protagonist writes from her southern refuge in Chiloé, an archipelago where, in Chile, the continent is said to end and break off into… ]]> Butterfly on folded paper

By Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella)

Nimrod International Journal, 2024

An epistolary narrative employing extended apostrophe as a literary device. The protagonist writes from her southern refuge in Chiloé, an archipelago where, in Chile, the continent is said to end and break off into pieces.

]]> Best Literary Translations 2024 Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/the-cracks-we-bear-2/index.html 2024-01-15T09:54:00-05:00

Michelle's translation of “A Body” by Chilean author Catalina Infante Beovic, originally published in Columbia Journal, is featured in this anthology. Her translation of “Chess Piece” by Ecuadorian author Natalia García Freire, originally published in The Arkansas International, is recognized on the longlist.

]]> Green and blue painted cover art

Guest Edited by Jane Hirshfield

Series coedited by: Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Öykü Tekten, and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún

Deep Vellum, 2024

Featured Translation:

“A Body” by Chilean author Catalina Infante Beovic, originally published in Columbia Journal.

Long-listed Translation:

“Chess Piece” by Ecuadorian author Natalia García Freire, originally published in The Arkansas International.

]]> Twilight Showing: Four Horror Shorts Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/twilight-showing-four-horror-shorts/index.html 2024-01-14T14:39:00-05:00 By John Better Armella (tr. George Henson and Michelle Mirabella) Southwest Review, 2024 These pieces originally appeared in Better's Fantasmata (Lugar Común) and Limbo (Seix Barral)—four flash fictions fit to be adapted as screenplay shorts. The novella Limbo, also cotranslated by Mirabella and Henson, is seeking… ]]>

By John Better Armella (tr. George Henson and Michelle Mirabella)

Southwest Review, 2024

These pieces originally appeared in Better's Fantasmata (Lugar Común) and Limbo (Seix Barral)—four flash fictions fit to be adapted as screenplay shorts. The novella Limbo, also cotranslated by Mirabella and Henson, is seeking a publisher.

]]> Fire Trances Michelle Mirabella https://www.michellemirabella.com/post/fire-trances/index.html 2023-09-14T14:50:00-04:00 by Iliana Vargas (tr. Lena Greenberg and Michelle Mirabella) Your Impossible Voice, 2023 “Fire Trances” examines themes of religion, (in)sanity, language, and the role of women through a surreal lens, referencing the oneiric musings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and her Primero Sueño,… ]]>

by Iliana Vargas (tr. Lena Greenberg and Michelle Mirabella)

Your Impossible Voice, 2023

“Fire Trances” examines themes of religion, (in)sanity, language, and the role of women through a surreal lens, referencing the oneiric musings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and her Primero Sueño, with a nod in the epigraph to the theophany that is at the heart of Philip K. Dick’s Valis. This tale of possession (by the Devil? by a god?) becomes increasingly apocalyptic as it unfolds in a cinematic and cryptic fashion, leaving readers with the disconcerting sensation of a text with neither a beginning nor an end. 

  • Nominated by YIV for Deep Vellum's Best Literary Translations anthology

]]>