Iberian Fiction: Mara Faye Lethem in Conversation

Please join us for a conversation between translator Mara Faye Lethem and Professor Helena Buffery, Head of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at University College Cork.  Mara will be discussing her work as a literary translator from Catalan and Spanish, with particular reference to her recent translations of works by Pol Guasch and Irene Solà, including When I Sing, Mountains Dance (2022), Napalm in the Heart (2024) and I Gave you Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness (2025).

© Jordi Teixidor

Mara Faye Lethem is a writer, researcher, and literary translator. She has been recognized with a wide range of awards and nominations, including the National Book Critics Circle Gregg Barrios Award, the Prix Jan Michalski, the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award, and the Lewis Galantière Award. Her novel, A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small, was recently translated into Spanish and Catalan. She is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, in support of her translations of Pere Calders.

Helena Buffery's teaching and research interests span Translation Studies, Hispanic Theatre and Performance Cultures and Iberian Studies (with a specialist focus on Catalan literature and culture). She has combined scholarship with translation work, cultural criticism with pedagogical reflection, cultural history with cross-disciplinary collaboration with creative practitioners.