Esther Allen (born June 29, 1962) is a writer, professor, and translator of French-language and Spanish-language literature into English. She is on the faculties of Baruch College (Department of Modern Languages & Comparative Literature) and the Graduate Center, CUNY (Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Ph.D. Program; French Ph.D. Program).[1] Allen co-founded PEN World Voices: the New York Festival of International Literature (2004), and worked with PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants from their inception in 2003 to 2010. Allen heads the Development Committee of the American Literary Translators Association,[2] and serves on the board of Writers Omi, part of Omi International Arts Center, on the Advisory Council to the Spanish-language program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and on the Selection Committee for the French Voices translation subvention program of the Services culturels français.
Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution, English-language translation of Spanish-language manuscript by Alma Guillermoprieto. Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution. Vintage Books. 2005. ISBN9780375725814. Guillermoprieto wrote in the book's Acknowledgements: Esther Allen "turned my stammering Spanish-language manuscript into an English text far more beautiful and assured than I could have written."
In Her Absence, English-language translation of 2001 Spanish-language novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina. Muñoz Molina, Antonio (July 17, 2007). In Her Absence. Translated by Allen, Esther. New York City: Other Press (published 2007). ISBN9781590512531. Reviewer Michael Kern Johnson called the work "an assured translation from Esther Allen that captures beautifully the shifting subtleties of tone and mood... satirical, and even very funny ... touching and painful."[6]
Dark Back of Time (Vintage International), English-language translation of Spanish-language novel by Javier Marías. Translation originally published 2001. Dark Back of Time. Vintage Books (published 2013). April 23, 2013. ISBN9780307950741.
Editor, To Be Translated or Not To Be, published in English, Catalan and German and distributed at the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair. Commissioned by PEN International and the Institut Ramon Llull.
^Coetzee, J. M. (November 5, 2017). "A Great Writer We Should Know". Nybooks.com. Retrieved November 5, 2017. Zama remains the most attractive of Di Benedetto's books, if only because of the crazy energy of Zama himself, which is vividly conveyed in Esther Allen's excellent translation."
^Kunkel, Benjamin (January 16, 2017). "A Neglected South American Masterpiece". Newyorker.com. Retrieved November 5, 2017. The belated arrival of Zama in the United States raises an admittedly hyperbolic question: Can it be that the Great American Novel was written by an Argentinean? It's hard, anyway, to think of a superior novel about the bloody life of the frontier.
^Michael Wood (April 5, 2018). "Vileness". London Review of Books.
