The College of Wooster welcomes translator Anne O. Fisher for reading and panel discussion Oct. 17

The College of Wooster will welcome author and translator Anne O. Fisher for a reading from her forthcoming translation of Ukranian writer Olena Stiazhkina’s memoir, Ukraine, Love, War: A Donetsk Diary, as well as a panel on “Translating Across the Front Lines.” The events will take place Oct. 17 at 11 a.m. in The Alley on the ground floor of the Lowry Student Center (1189 Beall Avenue). 

Fisher will read from Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary by Olena Stiazhkina, a Ukrainian history professor, journalist, and fiction writer from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Her diary, unpublished in the original and appearing first in translation, was a way of processing and recording the 2014 Russian invasion of her home. Following the reading will be a panel, where she will be joined by fellow translators Derek Mong, who will also be holding a poetry reading on Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., and Daniel Bourne, visiting professor emeritus of English at Wooster, and moderated by Zachary Rewinski, visiting assistant professor of Russian Studies at the College. They will discuss the purpose and complexities of translating literature of political and cultural significance, and both the panel and audience will have an opportunity to discuss other translation questions of interest.  

Fisher is a renowned translator and senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s program in translation and interpreting studies and is a former visiting assistant professor of Russian Studies at Wooster. Her other translated works include The Freedom Factory by Ksenia Buksha and the novels The Little Golden Calf and The Twelve Chairs by co-authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, among others. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Russian from the University of Oklahoma and her master’s and doctoral degrees in Slavic languages and literatures from the University of Michigan. 

This event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Donaldson Fund of the Department of English, the Department of German and Russian Studies, and The Dodge literary magazine. For more information, contact Daniel Bourne in the Department of English at dbourne@wooster.edu. 

Image provided by Fisher.

Posted in News on October 13, 2023.