Earn your MFA in Literary Translation

Ours is the nation’s first literary translation workshop, established over fifty years ago. Literary translation has long been an integral part of “The Writing University”. The MFA program in Literary Translation (MFALT) combines creative practice with critical training in world languages, literatures, and literary translation theory. Our core faculty of literary translators and scholars (currently Aron Aji, Adrienne Rose, Diana Thow, and Jan Steyn) are supplemented by a number of other translation experts; students also work with external faculty from a number of linguistic and creative fields, as well as visiting translators in residence.

Translators in the program focus on creating works that can convey the distinctness of the original languages and the capaciousness of English as a translating language, whether in poetry, fiction, or drama. The core of the MFALT experience is the “Multilingual Translation Workshop”, which serves as the creative commons where translators gather every week. Translating from their particular source languages into English (often our student cohort translates from a dozen or so source languages), they review and comment on each other's manuscripts, discuss practices and methods, and, in the process, develop a keen eye for both precision and aesthetic fluency in translation.

Beyond the workshops, in a variety of translation-based seminars, we reflect on ideas of literariness, cultural history, politics, and authority as we consider the relationship between authors and texts, authors and translators, translators and readers, and the media landscapes in which texts circulate. Our “Translator-in-Residence Workshop” features a renowned literary translator who holds a five-week residency in Iowa City and conducts an intensive workshop with MFALT students. In another workshop, students collaborate with and translate works by noted and emerging international writers from the IWP who hold a two-month residency each fall semester. Students can use elective courses to develop complementary skills and knowledge in fields of their choosing, including book arts, publishing, creative writing seminars, or other areas of interdisciplinary study.

The Master of Fine Arts program in literary translation requires 48 semester hours of graduate credit, including a thesis. Students must maintain a cumulative grade-point average (GPA) of at least 2.75. They typically complete the program and graduate in two years.

Students take workshops – a combination of TRNS:7460 “Translation Workshop” and TRNS:6555 “Translator in Residence Workshop” – for a minimum of 12 semester hours of credit (typically 4 workshops at 3 semester hours each). They take a further 12 semester hours of credit in the fixed sequence: TRNS:6459 “Issues in Translation” (our translation theory course), TRNS:6000 “The Craft and Contexts of Translation” (our professionalization course), TRNS:6399 “Writing About Translation” (a dedicated course about all the modes of writing associated with translation, including reviews, translator’s notes, forewords and afterwords, critical essays, translation memoir, etc.), and TRNS:6444 “Thesis Workshop” (a course taken in the final semester that supports students completing their major thesis project). The final 24 semester hours (typically 8 courses) are chosen together with the student’s academic advisor to deepen the literary, cultural, or creative dimensions of their translation practice, or to build expertise in a secondary field (often attached to a graduate certificate). Students also engage in a number of extracurricular activities, notably working on our internationally recognized translation journal Exchanges, its younger-older sister Ancient Exchanges, and the related podcast Translators Note. Many students receive summer funding in the form of Stanley International Travel Awards, Iowa MFA Summer Fellowships, or the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Summer Fellowship.

The MFALT has a strong placement record. Graduates go on to teach writing and literature, work in the world of professional publishing, or as free-lance translators, or to pursue PhDs in related disciplines. In recent years their works have been published by Action Books, Graywolf, Seven Stories, Autumn Hill Books, Melville House, Words Without Borders, The Iowa Review, 91st Meridian, TWO LINES, Circumference, Asymptote, The Literary Review, Drunken Boat, Passport, Absinthe, and many other venues. Our alumni have received and continue to receive translation awards, including the Best Translated Book Award, Pen/Heim grants, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.