Translations
Anthology Feature
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.
Flash Fiction
By John Better Armella (tr. George Henson and Michelle Mirabella)
Southwest Review, 2024
These pieces originally appeared in 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.
Story
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
Anthology Feature
Edited by Sandra Guzmán
Amistad, 2023
Featured Translations:
“Streets” by Granta-recognized Peruvian author Miluska Benavides
“Crossing” by Ecuadorian author Natalia García Freire
“Green Gold, Blue Gold” by Chilean author Catalina Infante Beovic
Flash Fiction
by Natalia García Freire (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
The Arkansas International, 2022
Using elements of the fantastic, the story creates this moment of hesitation between belief and disbelief providing a glimpse into a relationship—the one between the characters, but also the relationship between body and mind.
- Long-listed for Deep Vellum's inaugural Best Literary Translations anthology
- Reading featured by Translators Aloud for Women in Translation Month 2022
Flash Fiction
by Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
Columbia Journal, 2022
A commentary on paternal abandonment and how forgiveness cannot be given to something you hardly know. This story is from Infante Beovic’s 2018 collection Todas somos una misma sombra (We Women Are All One Shadow).
Flash Fiction
by John Better Armella (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
Firmament, 2022
“Trista in Duplicate” is reminiscent of Borges with a touch of Poe and a nod to Kafka when Better mentions a scene from his contemporary retelling of Metamorphosis, “Kafka Knocks at the Door,” published in 2020 by Your Impossible Voice in Mirabella’s translation.
Story
Ferns
by Catalina Infante Beovic (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
World Literature Today, 2020
“Ferns” entered the global conversation at a pivotal moment speaking to themes that are strikingly transcendental—repression of freedom of expression and movement, yearning for those freedoms, and a fight for liberation.
World Literature Today describes the story as Cortazarian, “simultaneously evoking life under past Chilean political oppression and living under recent worldwide quarantines due to Covid-19.”
Flash Fiction
Birds
by John Better (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
Latin American Literature Today, 2020
“Birds” embraces brevity, moving through a complete story arc in just 407 words. In this flash fiction piece, the form and content work together to display the ephemeral nature of existence. An exploration of isolation and captivity, Cortázar’s “Axolotl” comes to mind.
Flash Fiction
Kafka Knocks at the Door
by John Better (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
Your Impossible Voice, 2020
“Kafka Knocks at the Door” is a contemporary retelling of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a gesture to Gabriel García Márquez.
Story
Seed
by Iliana Vargas (tr. Michelle Mirabella)
Exchanges Journal of Literary Translation, 2019
The story “Seed” is timely both for its relevance to current global conversations on climate and its contribution to the development of the climate fiction (cli-fi) genre. In this cli-fi the setting is familiar; we do not have to suspend our disbelief to picture the scene because in many ways, we are living it.
Book-length Translations Seeking a Publisher
Catalina Infante Beovic’s Todas somos una misma sombra [Working title: We women are all one shadow] (Neón Ediciones, 2018)
An 8-story collection borrowing elements of a composite novel, the protagonists make the personal political in a narrative that grows increasingly detached from reality moving through the fantastic to the speculative. Set against a backdrop of the Chilean landscape.
Honors:
- Finalist in Columbia Journal‘s 2022 Spring Contest in the translation category: “A Body” (2022)
- Shortlisted for the 2021-22 John Dryden Competition: “An Island” (unpublished)
- Forthcoming in Deep Vellum’s inaugural Best Literary Translations anthology: “A Body” (forthcoming, 2024)
- Forthcoming in Nimrod International Journal: “An Island” (forthcoming, 2024)
Entire translation manuscript available upon request.
John Better’s Limbo (Seix Barral, 2019), co-translated with George Henson
A new Latin American gothic novella in three acts, Limbo is a work that queers gender and genre (both “género” in Spanish). The dramatized hybrid novella tells a twisted Bildungsroman exposing the untold horrors of a phantasmic Caribbean town.
Excerpts:
- See an excerpt published in Latin American Literature Today
- See two excerpts featured in Southwest Review as part of “Twilight Showing: Four Horror Shorts“
Entire translation manuscript available upon request.
Additional publications
Forthcoming
Infante Beovic, Catalina. “An Island.” Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Tulsa, OK: Nimrod International Journal, forthcoming 2024.
Translations of Essays
Barba, Eduardo. “Numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 19, 20, 24, 25.” Translated by Michelle Mirabella. In Flora, by Marisa Culatto, UK: Black Dog Press, October 2023.
Fernández Curbelo, Pablo. “Alejandra Pizarnik: The Absolute Hidden in the Night.” Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, September 2023.
Benavides, Jorge Eduardo. Jorge Edwards, transgressor of genres. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, June 2023.
Infante Beovic, Catalina. Like Creeping Lava. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: World Literature Today, July 2022.
Infante Beovic, Catalina. The Forest of Puerto Varas. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: World Literature Today, November 2021.
Bibliowicz, Azriel. Creative Writing is Here to Stay in Universities. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, November 2021.
Eltit, Diamela. Final Conversation: A Few Words from Diamela Eltit. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, November 2021.
Almada Noguerón, Vanesa. Review of El ciervo, by Yolanda Pantin. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, August 2021.
Tognelli, Arianna. Review of Nuestra piel muerta, by Natalia García Freire. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, November 2020.
Mendoza, Néstor. Review of El lugar de las palabras, by María Gómez Lara. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, August 2020.
Herrera Alarcón, Ricardo. Review of Ojo de agua, by Verónica Zondek. Translated by Michelle Mirabella. Norman, OK: Latin American Literature Today, May 2020.
Translations of Academic Work
Hidalgo Nácher, Max. “Translation and Anthropophagy from the Library of Haroldo de Campos.” Translated by Michelle Mirabella. In Routledge Handbook of Latin American Literary Translation, edited by Denise Kripper and Delfina Cabrera, New York, NY: Routledge, March 2023.
Baigorri Jalón, Jesús. Languages in the Crossfire: Interpreters in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Translated by Holly Mikkelson (Chapter 4 co-translated by Ardyn Clayton, Isabel Gonzalez-Gutierrez, Lena Greenberg, Eric Holman, Fiona Maloney-McCrystle, and Michelle Mirabella). New York, NY: Routledge, 2021.
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