Latin American Fiction
Michael B. Miller
Traducciones español-inglés

To be a translator of literary fiction requires that one also be a writer if one is to capture the rhythm and tone of the original, and bring it to life. The goal is always to make the English version sound as if it were the original text and this means that the translator must preserve the color and essence of the source language from which it flows. The art of translation is every bit as challenging as being the author of an original work, with the exception that the translator does not have to worry about plot, timeline, and characterization.

I enjoy dividing my time between translation and my own writing, since I find that translating literature energizes and fires my imagination with respect to my own creative efforts.

A graduate of the University of Delaware (B.A. 1963, M.A. 1965) and the George Washington University (Ph.D. 1974) and former professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures, Miller took an interest in translating Latin American fiction beginning in 1996. His first break came with Curbstone Press which published his translation of a work by one of Central America’s leading literary voices, Manlio Argueta of El Salvador. As a teacher and translator of Latin American fiction, Miller found his own fiction heavily influenced by the voices and techniques of the writers he was translating, most notably in a short story he wrote called LOVE AND HEARTACHE IN GRINGOLANDIA, published on-line at the invitation of the editor of webdelsol.com under the portal marked PUERTA DEL SOL

He has also translated children’s fiction for Everest Publishers in Spain and a contemplative, groundbreaking work on the phenomenon of life, Green Fire: The Life Force, from the Atom to the Mind (Thunder’s Mouth Press), by Spanish paleontologists Juan Luis Arsuaga and Ignacio Martínez.

Writers Workshops: Spring 1998: fiction workshop at the Bethesda Writers Center, with novelist Candace Denning; 1998 New York State Summer Writers Institute (fiction with Nicholas Delbanco; translation with John Felstiner); Fall 1999: fiction workshop at the Bethesda Writers Center, with novelist Barbara Esstman; 2000: Rappahannock Fiction Workshops, with novelist Robert Olmstead. Rappahannock, Virginia; June 2001: fiction workshop at the William Joiner Center in Boston, with 1987 National Book Award winner Larry Heinemann; 2002: Algonkian Writers Retreat Workshop with Michael Neff, editor of WebdelSol Magazine.