Courses

APPLY NOW for my September 2024 Online Hungarian to English Literary Translation Course:

It’s back! I’m offering my beloved online Hungarian to English Literary Translation Course again. The course will run for 11 weeks from the second week of September to the middle of November. We will meet via Zoom for 2-3 hours per week; the exact day and time will be determined based on students’ available schedules and time zones.

We will translate prose, poetry, and drama from award-winning contemporary Hungarian authors Márton Simon, Panni Puskás, Péter Závada, Eszter Kállay, Csaba Mikó, and Réka Ágnes Tóth. All of these authors will be guest visitors in the course, so we will have the opportunity to speak with them, learn the context of their texts, and ask them questions to guide our translations.

People interested in pursuing the art of literary translation as a hobby or as a potential career are encouraged to apply. Advanced English and Hungarian proficiency are required, but students need not be native speakers of either language. Students should be prepared to read a text and translate another each week.

Our final unit will cover how and where to publish our translations, how to work with Hungarian and English-language publishers, and how to earn grants, fellowships, residencies, and other means of support. Translator and editor Owen Good will join us for one of these conversations. Students’ final projects will be published in Hungarian Literature Online.

Finally, this year, scholarships to cover the full cost of the course are generously provided by the Cleveland Hungarian Development Panel. Five seats are available. To apply for a spot in the course and automatically be considered for the scholarship, please send me an email at hello@timeasipos.com and answer the following:

What is your Hungarian and English language proficiency? (Are you a beginner, intermediate, advanced, or native in reading, writing, and speech?)

How much and what kind of experience do you have with translating? (No experience is required; this is just for me to know everyone’s level).

How much and what have you read in Hungarian? (Again, it is not required that you have an extensive reading history in Hungarian; I simply want to know what you’ve read and enjoyed).

Why are you interested in taking this course? What do you hope to gain?

How did you find out about the course?

Write to me at hello@timeasipos.com to sign up.

Past Courses:

This year (2022), I had the pleasure of leading another edition of my online Hungarian to English literary translation workshop. Five students and myself gathered online from places such as Budapest, Berlin, Barcelona, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. Together, we tackled a carefully curated selection of texts from classical and contemporary, male and female Hungarian authors, including poets Kornélia Deres and Sándor Weöres, dramatists Dóra Gimesi and Ferenc Molnár, and fiction writers Ilka Papp-Zakor and Géza Csáth. Of these, all the contemporary authors visited the class to answer translation questions, as well as translator extraordinaire Judith Sollosy and translator-editor Owen Good. These guests guided our conversations and translation process. Week to week, these students—a mix of native Hungarian and native English speakers—came to class with provocative questions, ideas, and comments. It was an absolute delight to discuss literature and translation with these students, and to guide the work of rising translators.

You can read the works of students from the course here:

• “The Sorcerer’s Garden,” a short story by Géza Csáth, translated by E.M. McQueen

• “Ocean Liners,” a poem by Kornélia Deres, translated by Réka Tomasics

• “Flying Monkeys,” a poem by Kornélia Deres, translated by Nora Schmel

• “The Sorcerer’s Death,” a short story by Géza Csáth, translated by Zsuzsanna Györky

From February 16th to May 25th 2021, I had the pleasure of leading an online Hungarian to English literary translation workshop of five students. We gathered on Zoom every Tuesday evening for an hour and a half from all across the globe—Budapest, Berlin, Paris, London, and Bloomington, Indiana. Together, we tackled a carefully curated selection of texts from classical and contemporary, male and female Hungarian authors, including poets, dramatists, and fiction writers. We discussed the nuances of both languages (like, does együttérzés translate as compassion or empathy? And what is the difference between the two?), compared the intricacies of the two cultures (what an American or British sanatorium entails vs. a Hungarian one); and asked difficult questions (like, just what exactly is in a gyros?). We also had the opportunity to pose our questions to some of the authors themselves, namely Lajos Parti Nagy, Panni Puskás, and Márton Simon. It was a thrill and an absolute delight to have discussions like these with such sharp minds, and to guide the work of such skilled rising translators. I can rightly claim to have learned as much over the course of these months as they did. At the end of our course, Hungarian Literature Online published a translation of each student.

Those works can be found here:

• “The Fat Girl Inside Me”, a story by Panni Puskás, translated by Anna Polonyi

• “Atlantis”, a poem by Márton Simon, translated by Ryan Lane

• The second act of the play Atriumchloride by Lajos Parti Nagy, translated by Charles Hebbert

• “MaIDENHair”, a poem by Kinga Tóth, translated by Alina Williams

• “Lovers”, a story by Áron Tamási, translated by Katharina Seyfert

Testimonials:

On our first day, we puzzled over the subtle difference between ‘süt’ in Hungarian and ‘bake’ in English: this was how I knew I was in the right place. What a treat to think collectively about the many quirks, mysteries and possibilities of both the English and Hungarian literary traditions. I couldn’t have been in better hands!

–Anna Polonyi, MFA Iowa Writers’ Workshop, author of Wayword

Timea brought a wide variety of texts to class, encouraging students to push themselves and tackle texts that pose unique challenges for translation, allowing students to learn in a welcoming, collaborative environment. Throughout the course, she shared her knowledge about writing, translation, and the realities of publication, setting students up to emerge from the course with polished translations and a practical skillset for publishing their work.

–Alina Bessenyey Williams, Hungarian studies program, Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University.

Timea’s feedback on our individual translations was always invaluable, and the camaraderie engendered by the course format added much to the experience. And let us not forget the occasions that Timea organized for us to personally consult with the contemporary writers we were translating simply irreplaceable opportunities.

–Ryan Lane.