Spanish Translation Slam

What happens when two translators work on the same text into the same language? How different can their translations be?

In this event, we bring together two translators, Isabel Adey and Michael McCaffrey, both of whom have learnt Spanish to a very high level.

Each of our translators has been given the same text to translate, a passage from Suicidios ejemplares [Exemplary Suicides] a a collection of short stories by Enrique Vila-Matas. Vila-Matas has written several award-winning books and is among the favourites to win a Nobel Prize in Literature.

Our two translators have prepared their own translations of the text without conferring with one another. In this event, we will bring the two translators, and their respective translations, together, to compare the results.

Isabel Adey is a literary translator and editor working with Spanish, German and English. Originally from Yorkshire, she now lives in Edinburgh, where she also works as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Her translation of Giovanna Rivero’s Fresh Dirt from the Grave was longlisted for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute translation prize in 2024, following a shortlisting for her co-translation of Marvel Moreno’s December Breeze in 2023. Her translations span multiple disciplines, from literary fiction to non-fiction and academia. She holds an MSc in Translation from Heriot-Watt university and a MA in Modern European Languages from the University of Edinburgh.

Michael McCaffrey is a PhD candidate in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College Dublin. His doctoral research examines the multilingual translation of Mar Paraguayo by Wilson Bueno as an act of queer resistance. He also holds an M.Phil in Literary Translation from the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation where he focused on the translation of Spanish and Portuguese-language texts. His broader research interests include the translation of queer and postcolonial identities in Latin American contexts.

The event is free and open to everyone.

This event is organised in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute, Dublin