Natasha Wimmer

'''Natasha Wimmer''' (born 1973<ref name=pw/>) is an American translator best known for her translations of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño's ''2666'' and ''The Savage Detectives'' from Spanish into English.<ref name=csm/>

== Biography == Natasha Wimmer grew up in Iowa.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Natasha Wimmer |url=https://www.ndbooks.com/author/natasha-wimmer/ |access-date=2023-06-10 |website=www.ndbooks.com |language=en}}</ref> She learned Spanish in Spain, where she spent four years growing up. She studied Spanish literature at Harvard University.<ref name=csm>[https://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0116/p13s01-algn.html "A translator's task – to disappear"], Matthew Shaer, ''Christian Science Monitor'', January 16, 2009 edition</ref>

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and children.<ref name=":0" />

== Career == Her first job after graduating was at Farrar, Straus & Giroux from 1996 to 1999 as an assistant and then managing editor.<ref name="pw" /> While working there, Wimmer produced her first translation'','' the ''Dirty Havana Trilogy'' by Cuban novelist Pedro Juan Gutiérrez.<ref name="csm" />

Wimmer then worked at ''Publishers Weekly'', before leaving to work on Roberto Bolaño's books full-time.<ref name="pw" /> On her work in publishing and translation, Wimmer has said: "I had decided in college that I would never be a fiction writer, but I knew I wanted to be as close to books as I could. Publishing was one way, and translating turned out to be a better way for me."<ref name="pw">[http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6628066.html?industryid=47148 "Natasha Wimmer: Translator helps turn a Latin American novelist into a U.S. sensation"], by Craig Morgan Teicher, ''Publishers Weekly'', 1/12/2009. Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20090218135620/https://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6628066.html?industryid=47148</ref>

She has also translated Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa's ''The Language of Passion, The Way to Paradise'', and ''Letters to a Young Novelist''; and Marcos Giralt Torrente's ''Father and Son'', among other works.

Wimmer has written for publications such as ''The Nation,'' ''The New York Times'', and ''The Believer''.<ref name=":0" /> She teaches translation at Princeton University.<ref name=":0" />

== Awards == Wimmer received a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant in 2007 and the PEN Translation Prize in 2009.<ref name=":0" /> She won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2008<ref name=":0" /> for her translation of ''2666''<ref name=":1" /> and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Natasha Wimmer |url=https://spo.princeton.edu/people/natasha-wimmer |access-date=2023-06-10 |website=Spanish and Portuguese |language=en}}</ref>

Spanish writer Gabriela Ybarra's ''The Dinner Guest'', in Wimmer's translation, was nominated for the 2018 International Booker Prize.

== Translations ==

=== Of Roberto Bolaño === * ''2666'' * ''The Savage Detectives'' (''Los detectives salvajes'') * ''The Third Reich'' (''El Tercer Reich'') * ''A Little Lumpen Novelita'' (''Una novelita lumpen'') * ''Antwerp'' (''Amberes'') * ''The Spirit of Science Fiction'' (''El espíritu de la ciencia-ficción'') * ''Woes of the True Policeman'' (''Los sinsabores del verdadero policía'') * ''Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas'' (''Sepulcros de vaqueros'') * ''Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998-2003'' * ''The Secret of Evil'' (''El Secreto del Mal'')

=== Of Álvaro Enrigue ===

* ''You Dreamed of Empires'' (''Tu sueño imperios han sido'')<ref>{{cite news |last1=Garner |first1=Dwight |author1-link=Dwight Garner |title=A Novel of the Spanish Conquest, Magic Mushrooms Included |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/books/review/you-dreamed-of-empires-alvaro-enrigue.html |access-date=30 November 2024 |work=New York Times |date=8 January 2024}}</ref> * ''Sudden Death'' (''Muerte súbita'') * ''Now I Surrender to You and That Is All'' (''Ahora me rindo y eso es todo'')

=== Of Nona Fernández ===

* ''Space Invaders'' * ''Voyager: Constellations of Memory'' * ''The Twilight Zone'' (''La dimensión desconocida'')

=== Of Mario Vargas Llosa === * ''The Way to Paradise'' (''El paraíso en la otra esquina'') * ''Letters to a Young Novelist'' (''Cartas a un joven novelista'') * ''The Language of Passion''

=== Of Gabriel Zaid ===

* ''The Secret of Fame'' (''El secreto de la fama'') * ''So Many Books'' (''Los demasiados libros'')

=== Of other authors ===

* ''Kensington Gardens'' (''Jardines de Kensington'') by Rodrigo Fresán * ''Father and Son: A Lifetime'' by Marcos Giralt Torrente * ''Dirty Havana Trilogy'' (''Trilogía sucia de La Habana'') by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez * ''Delirium'' (''Delirio'') by Laura Restrepo * ''The Dinner Guest'' (''El comensal'') by Gabriela Ybarra

==Notes== {{Portal|United States|Biography}} {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wimmer, Natasha}} Category:Living people Category:1973 births Category:Harvard College alumni Category:Spanish–English translators Category:20th-century American translators Category:21st-century American translators Category:20th-century American women writers Category:21st-century American women writers Category:Translators Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winners