The Vanderbilt University Press has established the Global Black Writers in Translation trade series beginning in 2025. The new series will translate texts by authors of African descent from their original source language into English. By publishing the texts in English, the university aims to introduce Black literature, history, and political thought to a broader audience.
The Global Black Writers in Translation series will be overseen by three editors who all earned a Ph.D. from a foreign-language program at Vanderbilt University: Nathan H. Dize of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, Annette Joseph-Gabriel of Duke University, and Vanessa K. Valdés of the City College of New York. The editors have a combined expertise in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Afro-Latinx studies, Black internationalism, translation studies, cultural history, and critical history.
“In an urgent time of global change, we need to heighten the ways we share scholarship and literary writing by promoting the act of translation,” said Gianna Mosser, director of Vanderbilt University Press. “This new series takes as its foundation the type of foreign-language training that Vanderbilt University has stewarded, where intellectual curiosity meets cultural exploration, and applies it to the world of translated literature from the global Black diaspora.”
Through the new series at Vanderbilt University Press, the editorial team hopes to facilitate global knowledge-sharing about translation studies while establishing a larger network of international partners dedicated to honoring the work of Black writers. Additionally, the series will give special attention to books that can be utilized in Vanderbilt University courses on literature, history, race, gender, and justice.
