A great translation can feel effortless, which is exactly why so many people underestimate what it takes. We sit down with Granit Zela, an Albanian poet, writer, university lecturer, and award-winning literary translator, to get honest about the craft behind “bringing a book into another language” and the real intellectual property questions hiding inside every sentence.
Granit takes us back to an isolated childhood in northeastern Albania, where discovering his father’s small library became a turning point. From Jules Verne to 1001 Nights, he explains how reading created passageways out of loneliness and toward authorship, and why that early relationship with words still shapes how he writes and translates today.
From there, we zoom out to the larger literary ecosystem: Forum 26, cultural exchange, and what smaller language communities need to remain vibrant in an era of global platforms and dominant languages. We also get practical and specific about translator rights and publishing norms: clear contracts, proper attribution, transparency, and fair remuneration, grounded in one powerful idea that should guide copyright law and copyright reform alike: the literary translator is the author of the translation.
We close with the stakes for sustainability and the future, including digital publishing and AI training on books. If technology changes everything, how do we keep consent, control, and fair pay from disappearing? Subscribe to Intangibilia, share this conversation with your network, and leave a review with your take on what “fair” should mean for authors and translators.
The views and opinions expressed (by the host and guest(s)) in this podcast are strictly their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the entities with which they may be affiliated. This podcast should in no way be construed as promoting or criticizing any particular government policy, institutional position, private interest or commercial entity. Any content provided is for informational and educational purposes only.
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