Translator to Translator: Translating Diaspora

Aaron Coleman and Jon Cho-Polizzi discuss the challenges and revelations of translating the Black diaspora: examining continuities and ruptures across languages, geographies, and time. The global popularity of Black American culture can provide a reference point across the Black diaspora, but it also serves to obscure local traditions of art and resistance that have developed both independently and in conversation with other diasporic narratives over centuries.

Aaron will discuss his own work as a poet and its influence on his practice in the context of his 2024 translation of Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén’s The Great Zoo, while Jon reflects on the growing visibility of Black and Afro-German art and literature.

About Translator to Translator

Translator to Translator is a translator-curated event series at CAT featuring conversations about the intersections of literature, activism, and identity.

This event series places the Center for the Art of Translation’s (CAT’s) public programming resources directly into the hands of translators, empowering them to curate provocative and timely conversations about language, global literature, and the art of translation. By inviting guest curators to shape our programming, we are creating a space for dream interviews, deep investigations, and fresh perspectives on the work we love.

This series is designed to strengthen our translator community and bring new voices into the discussion. Whether you are a translator, an author, or simply an avid reader, we invite you to join us.

Our first curator is Jon Cho-Polizzi, a translator and scholar whose work focuses on  bringing the many voices and backgrounds represented in the contemporary German literary scene to English-speaking readers.

For his curated series, Jon has invited four translators whose work speaks directly to the intersections of literature, activism, and identity: Aaron Coleman, Melody Makeda Ledwon, Mona Kareem, and Anton Hur. These conversations explore how translation acts as a vital tool for decolonization, cultural exchange, and the reclamation of diverse narratives across borders.

Aaron Coleman is a poet, translator, and scholar of the African Diaspora. He is the author of Red Wilderness (Four Way Books, 2025) and the translator of Nicolás Guillén’s The Great Zoo (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Coleman’s other poetry collections include Threat Come Close (Four Way Book, 2018), winner of the GLCA New Writers Award, and St. Trigger (Button, 2016), selected by Adrian Matejka for the Button Poetry Chapbook Prize. He is an assistant professor of English and comparative literature in the Helen Zell Writers’s Program at the University of Michigan.

Jon Cho-Polizzi is a literary translator and Assistant Professor of German at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He grew up on the Mendocino Coast and studied Literature, History, and Translation at UC Santa Cruz and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg before relocating to the East Bay, where he completed a concurrent PhD in German and Medieval Studies at UC Berkeley. His translation works highlight the radical diversity of contemporary German-language literature, with a focus on the Berlin literary scene. Recent book-length translations include Fatma Aydemir’s Djinns, Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Ada’s Realm (which was long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award), and Max Czollek’s De-Integrate: A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century for which he was awarded the 2024 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize. Jon splits his time living and working between Michigan, Northern California, and Berlin.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.