Bio

Mara Faye Lethem is a writer, researcher, and literary translator. Winner of the inaugural Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award for Max Besora’s The Adventures and Misadventures of Joan Orpí, she was also awarded the Joan Baptiste Cendrós International Prize for her contributions to Catalan literature. Her translation of Irene Solà’s When I Sing, Mountains Dance was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Barrios Book in Translation Prize and the Prix Jan Michalski, and winner of the Nota Bene Prize and the Lewis Galantière Award. Her novel, A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small, has been translated into two languages. She is currently writing a memoir.

Project Description

To support the translation of the short story collection My Personal Favorites by Pere Calders from Catalan. Calders (1912-94) is one of the most beloved and widely read Catalan writers of the 20th century, best known for his prolific output of short stories. He was born in Barcelona just a few months after the sinking of the Titanic, which he used as a metaphor throughout his life. Encouraged by his father, who wrote novels and plays and translated Shakespeare into Catalan, Calders began writing stories at 14. He was later exiled in Mexico for 23 years, during which he continued to write and publish in Catalan while earning his living as an illustrator. Published in 1984, My Personal Favorites is a selection by the author of 28 of his short stories drawn from six different collections spanning five decades of his career.