Esther Allen

Nov 30, 2023 | podcasts.apple.com | Esther Allen |Megan McDowell |Edith Grossman |Luisa Leme |Chase Harrison

Earlier this year, Latin American literature lost a champion when Edith Grossman, one of the foremost Spanish language translators, passed away. Grossman not only translated some of the region's master writers, but she advocated for her profession and for the value of reading in translation.

Oct 12, 2023 | nybooks.com | Esther Allen |Alma Guillermoprieto

My first glimpse of Colombia was in the summer of 1973. I’d been living in New York City and was on my way to Chile, to a promised scholarship at a university in Santiago. Some New York friends put me in touch with an Orthodox rabbi, an enthusiast of world revolution with a sideline as a purveyor of slightly dodgy plane tickets. Over a long afternoon, the rabbi and I planned an itinerary that, compared to a direct flight from New York to Santiago, would save me some much-needed dollars.

Jun 28, 2023 | wordswithoutborders.org | Daniel Hahn |Paulo Scott |Esther Allen |Nina Perrotta

Watch Daniel Hahn’s Ottaway Award acceptance speech and read the transcript below. Esther Allen’s laudation of Hahn is also available on WWB. Well, on behalf of all my siblings . . . That was fun, wasn’t it? Thank you, Esther. I feel like those seven minutes are going to keep my ego very well fed for quite a long time. (I also can’t believe at this point that I said to my parents, “Nah, you don’t need to bother watching, it’s fine.” I think my parents might have enjoyed that.

Jun 15, 2023 | wordswithoutborders.org | Esther Allen |Daniel Hahn |Nina Perrotta

To present the Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature to Daniel Hahn is a momentous and singular honor that I am very lucky to have been granted. Dozens of people would have given quite a bit for this opportunity, I know, and that—before we get into everything he’s done for literature, translation, and all the rest of it—brings us immediately to the first and most important thing there is to say about Danny: He is massively, immensely beloved.