I'M A WRITER AND SPANISH > ENGLISH ​TRANSLATOR IN OAKLAND, CA

I’ve written detective novels and history books and have translated fiction and nonfiction from Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America and Spain. ​ Publishers of these books have included City Lights, Penguin, Beacon Press, South End Press, Palgrave-MacMillan, St. Martin’s Press, Cubanabooks, Harvard and SUNY and U of Cal presses, and more. My short fiction and poetry translations have appeared in Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Agni, Asymptote, Brooklyn Rail, Zzyzzyva, Tupelo Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Washington Square Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Orion, On the Seawall, and other journals.  Writings about literary translation have appeared in Paris Review, Three Percent Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders, Cubacounterpoints, and Translorial. For scholarly nonfiction translations, see "Translations" page, bottom.

Gabriela Alemán's
SMOKE  -- pre-order now

Coming this fall from City Lights Books, by the author of Poso Wells and Family Album.
"A terrible and beautiful story about the delicate borders between what is known and what is invented, and about the places where intimate tragedy and the tragedies of history intersect. Her characters are seeking their own path to survive in monstrous times.”–Yuri Herrera
"The best novel about Paraguay since Roa Bastos' I the Supreme."–El País

Out in October, pre-order here

Paula Abramo's
FIAT LUX

From FlowerSong Press, a cycle of poems about Abramo's ancestors -- political refugees to and within Latin America -- and about poetry itself. Bilingual edition. Finalist, California Translation Award in Poetry.
"A great story about the human journey and courage, marvelously captured in the poetics of everyday life.” — Words Without Borders
"Amazing, unique and mind-blowing little book. Paula Abramo proves that there are territories where only poetry can take us." — Alejandro Zambra.
"A beautiful and rich family history in poetry"--Northern California Book Reviewers

INFO AND ORDER

Listen to one poem HERE

THE HISTORY
​OF HAVANA

"This beautifully written, reliably informative, and extremely sensitive account provides a delightful examination across time of the extraordinary human dimensions of an extraordinary people." – American Library Association Choice.
"This engaging, people-centered account takes a social and cultural perspective as much as an economic and political one and is peppered with lively personal testimonies to make the past more pertinent and more real." -- Rough Guide to Cuba
​Second edition, covering 1519 to 2017.   Order here.​

KILL THE AMPAYA

Winner of the Northern California Book Award for fiction translation.

"It may be that as this baseball season begins, no book related to the game is more necessary than this one. The great bonus is, it's also great fun." -- Bill Littlefield, WBUR/NPR, Only a Game.

"A welcome reminder that inspired writing about the sport isn't limited to the United States. Dick Cluster has done a masterful job of curating and translating this collection." -- Paul Hagen, mlb.com

For a piece based on my intro to the book, see here: lareviewofbooks.org/article/kill-the-ampaya-on-latin-american-baseball-fiction/