About

Mission

Hopscotch Translation is an online revue dedicated to celebrating and discussing the complexity and diversity of literary translation. We aspire to provide a platform for translators, writers, scholars, publishers, and readers alike to share their ideas, engage in dialogue, and reflect on the challenges and joys of their craft. We firmly believe that all translation is creative writing, and as such, translators deserve a space to explore what this particular form of writing entails.

Hopscotch Translation invites pieces that explore the art of translation across languages, literary genres, media, and time periods. In other words, translation is the primary lens through which our contributors explore questions about culture, language, narrative, and writing, in both theory and practice. While many of our recent contributions have focused on literary translation, we likewise invite pieces that engage with translation in a variety of extraliterary contexts, from the peculiarities of philosophical terminology to multilayered challenges of film subtitles to the translinguistic archival work of historians. Beyond translations into English, we are equally interested in the translation of Anglophone writers into other languages.

By cultivating ongoing discussions, reflection, and critique, Hopscotch Translation pushes back against the ephemerality of the publishing calendar, extending the conversation and rekindling interest in recent and historical works. We therefore aim to promote forthcoming works and review recent publications, while also providing a space for our contributors to write about their favorite translators in history, re-translations of the classics, and forgotten translations. Creative submissions may take the form of essays, interviews, translator’s notes, reviews, and more. We are open to discussing innovative formats.

History
Named in honor of (Gregory Rabassa’s translation of) Julio Cortázar’s novel, Hopscotch Translation was founded in 2018 by Erik Beranek as an outgrowth of the events series he was then directing at the Penn Book Center in Philadelphia. What began as a platform for highlighting newly published works in translation quickly developed into a forum in which translators and writers could discuss their work. Over the ensuing months, Hopscotch welcomed writers from all over the world and showcased works translated from over a dozen languages, including French, Arabic, Russian, and Catalan. Although PBC sadly closed its doors in June 2020 after 58 years serving the Philadelphia community, Hopscotch Translation has taken on a new life as a multifaceted initiative to expand on the work that began in the bookstore.

Masthead

Our editorial team:

Renée Altergott
Erik Beranek
Chris Clarke
Samuel Martin

Site design by Tracy Kellmer and Erik Beranek
Banner photo by John Hubbard

Submission Guidelines

We are now welcoming submissions for Spring 2023. Hopscotch Translation is an online revue dedicated to promoting dialogue on the practical, theoretical, and critical aspects of literary translation. We are eager to forge a larger community of translators, readers, and language enthusiasts, and would love to read and share your work. We provide peer-reviewed feedback, edits, and basic proofs before publication.

Ideas for possible topics include:

• Short reviews of translations: Read something great lately? Tell us about it, and do your bit to help get the word out.
• Long reviews: Take a deep dive! In-depth reviews, comparative work, critical examination of different translations of the same work. We’re open to suggestions!
• Critical examinations of works on translation: New or old. Dig in: laud, refute, compare, modernize, theorize.
• Interviews: We will be running regular interviews with literary translators, translator/author pairings, theorists, publishers, and so on. Someone out there you’d like to interview? Run it by us!
• Biographical pieces: New or old. Tell us about the work or theories of a translation-related personality you admire, whether it’s Lydia Davis, Kate Briggs, Jhumpa Lahiri, Friedrich Hölderlin, or Cicero.
• Collaborative pieces: How about a written panel discussion between you and one or several of your colleagues? It can be an interesting way to see multiple sides of a question.
• Orphaned Translator’s Notes: Do you have further insights you’d like to share on a recent translation you published? Would you like to discuss the genesis of a recent translation project or the collaborative relationship you developed with a writer you’ve been translating? Whether theoretical or autobiographical, essays supplementing your recent work in translation are welcome.

Formatting Guidelines
Submissions should be original, previously unpublished work. We are not currently accepting full translations for publication; however, discussions, with excerpts, of forthcoming translations are welcome, provided all necessary permissions have been secured from the publisher by the author/translator prior to submission.

General target lengths: 1,500-3,000 words for a short review; 3,000-5,000 words for a longer essay or interview. These word limits are not strict, but are meant to give you a rough idea. 

We do not have a strict house style or formatting preference (Chicago, MLA, British vs American, etc), but we do ask that you keep any footnotes to a minimum and remain consistent in your style throughout. 

Pieces should be mainly in English, but citations from other languages are welcome. We will work with you to make sure that any non-Latin scripts appear properly in the proof before publishing.

We aim to return comments in a timely fashion. If you have not heard from us within one month, please feel free to follow up. Once your piece has been accepted for publication, we will provide a specific timeline for final edits, proofs, and publication. We currently aim to publish one piece per week.

Please send your submission in the form of a Word Document ( .doc), LastName_Title, to hopscotch.translation [at] gmail.com.

Contributors

For a full list of Hopscotch Translation contributors, visit our Contributors Page.

Contact

Questions, comments, and contributions should be emailed to us at hopscotch.translation [at] gmail.com.