Examines translation as a practice through which language, literature, ideas and cultural experience move between writers, translators and readers. It considers how translators build understanding across linguistic and cultural contexts by interpreting not only words, but also voice, meaning, register and context.
The session asks what changes when AI enters this process. While automated systems can increasingly assist with speed, access and routine forms of translation, more complex literary and culturally situated translation continues to depend on interpretation, contextual knowledge and creative judgement. It considers what these differences mean for the role and responsibility of the translator today.
Ian Giles
Ian Giles is an Edinburgh-based literary translator working from Swedish, Norwegian and Danish into English. With more than fifteen years' experience, he has translated over 40 titles, spanning bestselling fiction and complex academic and cultural texts. Recent translations include works by Camilla Läckberg, David Lagercrantz and Søren Sveistrup, as well as Andrev Walden's international bestseller 'Bloody Awful in Different Ways'. His translation of Ørjan Karlsson's 'Into Thin Air' won the 2026 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel.
Ian regularly writes and speaks on literary translation, translator ethics, publishing trends and the impact of AI on the profession. He is Chair of the Translators Association, an elected board member of the UK Society of Authors, and organiser of the Assembly of Literary Translators, an annual professional development event held on the eve of the London Book Fair.
Michael Cooperson
Professor of Arabic and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Graduate of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad at the American University of Cairo (1988) and Harvard University (PhD 1994). Academic interests: pre-modern Arabic cultural history, literary translation, Maltese language and literature. Author of Classical Arabic Biography (2000) and Al-Ma'mun (2005). Co-author of Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (2001). Translator of Abdelfattah Kilito, The Author and His Doubles (2001); Ibn al-Jawzi's Life of Ibn Hanbal (Sheikh Hamad Award, 2016) and al-Hariri's Impostures (the Maqamat; Sheikh Zayed Award, 2021).
Yara El Masri
Egyptian translator who studied Chinese at the Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University in Cairo, and at Shandong Normal University in Jinan, China. She has published short stories, poetry and translated studies from Chinese into Arabic in periodicals including Al-Arabi magazine, Al-Ahram, the cultural supplement of Al-Ittihad and Akhbar Al-Adab, among other Arabic cultural publications. Sixteen of her translated works have been published. Through her website “Voices from China” she publishes selected translations of stories, poems and texts from contemporary Chinese literature.
Dr. Sahar Othmani
Sahar Othmani is a visiting fellow in media and translation at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and a lecturer in creative writing. She holds a PhD in translation from Queen's University Belfast. Her research specialises in literary translation between marginalised cultures, with a focus on Korean and Arabic. Sahar has publications on the use of generative AI in gamification as a pedagogical instrument, and on exophonic writing in third culture settings. She is an assistant editor at The Translator Journal and a published poet and translator. She was longlisted for the 2025 New Voices in Translation Award and the 2023 Pushcart Award for poetry.