March 5, 2026

The Bennington Writing Seminars, the writing MFA program at Bennington College, is proud to announce the launch of a new dual-genre concentration in Literary Translation. Applicants and current students studying Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry will be able to add Literary Translation as a secondary concentration, lengthening the program from four to five terms.

“Bennington College has a great history as a center for the translation of literature,” said Bennington Writing Seminars Executive Director Mark Wunderlich, “and we are happy to now offer instruction in literary translation in our graduate writing program. Students will now be able to spend two terms studying with some of the finest translators in the field and leave with a fully translated work.”

Bennington College alum and Bennington Writing Seminars faculty member and National Book Award-winning translator Bruna Dantas Lobato '15 designed the program to enable students to engage with a global literary community: “We translate literature to engage with the world and its many languages, to be in conversation with and open to modes of thinking and being besides our own,” she said. “Literary translation is the rewriting of a literary text in a new language and all the transformations that act entails, as the text travels to a new cultural, linguistic, and aesthetic context. Translation broadens and deepens our understanding of humanity and language, shows us there are more possibilities beyond our reach, and pushes us to challenge our own perspective. It is thanks to translation and translators that readers aren’t cut off from the rest of the world, living in intellectual isolation.”

The Bennington Writing Seminars is proud and excited to be able to offer this expansive new avenue of study to applicants and existing students.

Rigorous Study of the Art of Translation

• Attend jam-packed 10-day residencies at Bennington in January and June.
• Work 1:1 with acclaimed translators at residency and through monthly correspondence.
• Translate Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, or a mix.
• Intermediate fluency in a language other than English required.

Dual-Genre Concentration

• Study Literary Translation as a secondary genre in addition to your main genre, Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry.
• Work on your own translation while studying the art and craft of translation through 1:1 mentorship. 
• Adding Literary Translation extends the program from four to five semesters, three in your main genre and two in Literary Translation.
• Dual-genre applicants may apply to study Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry as their main genre, and Literary Translation, Fiction, Nonfiction, or Poetry as their secondary genre.
• For more information about the Dual-Genre option, see this page.

Applications Open: March 5, 2026

Program Launches and Coursework Begins: January 2027

Applicants must submit a translation work sample and essay per the complete guidelines (open the tab labeled “Dual Genre Option in Literary Translation Guidelines”).

Lobato is a writer and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, The Dial, and The Common. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translated Literature for The Words that Remain by Stênio Gardel. Originally from Natal, Brazil, she lives in Iowa and teaches at Grinnell College. Her debut novel, Blue Light Hours, is out now from Grove Atlantic.