Literary Translation

Overview

Course Description

The Literary Translation programme of Trinity College Dublin is based in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation, Ireland’s foremost centre for the study and practice of literary and cultural translation. Our students are ideally placed to build professional networks and to see the translation industry from the inside.

The course’s name uses the term “literary”. However, this should not be taken to indicate only novels and poems. In fact, the course’s definition of “literature” is so broad as to include anything that involves human creativity, including video games, subtitles, speeches, comics, and songs. 

Translation, and especially the kind of creative translation we develop as part of the MPhil in literary translation, has been a subject of huge interest in recent years, both within academia and in industry. At the same time, the demand for well-qualified translators continues to grow internationally, and this form of translation more than any other is coming to be valued as something that is not easily done by machines.

Careers and Employability

There is a strong and growing demand for highly-trained translators with the creativity and linguistic prowess to create aesthetically appealing work. Such translators are already sought out not only in the field of literature, but also in the private and public sector, in international organisations, media, and education. We have close ties with many such organisations, and give our students regular opportunities to interact with them.

Students pursue careers in the fields of translation and interpreting, as well as localisation, project management, editing, and promoting. Recent graduates have gone on to work as translators, editors and project managers, to work for NGOs, and to pursue advanced research in the form of a PhD.