I translate contemporary Portuguese-language literary fiction and creative non-fiction into English.
I’ve translated work by several award-winning Brazilian and Portuguese authors, including: Emilio Fraia, Veronica Stigger, Carol Bensimon, Ana Paula Maia, Juliana Leite, Vanessa Barbara, Natalia Timerman, Rodrigo de Souza Leão, Clara Drummond, Aline Bei, Luis. S. Krausz, Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Julián Fuks, Carlos Henrique Schroeder, João Anzanello Carrascoza, Lourenço Mutarelli, Mia Couto, and Sérgio Rodrigues.
My translations have appeared in the The Paris Review, the New Yorker, n+1, the New York Times, Astra, Granta, The White Review, Latin American Literature Today, Litro, One Grand Journal, Words Without Borders, The Washington Square Review, and Springhouse Journal.
My translation of “My Good Friend” by Juliana Leite, published in The Paris Review, was awarded a 2024 National Magazine Award for Fiction. My translation of a short story by Emilio Fraia was the first ever work of fiction by a Brazilian author to appear in the New Yorker, published in December 2019. Read more about my published book-length translations and extracts/short fiction.
My tastes lean toward the offbeat and unusual, and I’m drawn to work that tests and stretches the boundaries of genre. I seek to champion strong women’s voices and writing that explores the concepts of identity and belonging. I have a soft spot for dark humor, the absurd, and noir. Some other things I love: stories by and about rural people; old lady narrators; concision; books about death; unreliable narrators; gritty São Paulo narratives; lists.
Check out some of what I’m currently pitching here and here.
My translation of Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia was awarded the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize and was the inaugural winner of the Cercador Prize, selected by a committee of independent booksellers. It was also the recipient of an English PEN Translates grant.
In 2015 I was awarded a PEN/Heim grant for my translation of Opisanie swiata by Veronica Stigger and I was translator-in-residence at the FLIP international literary festival in Paraty, Brazil. My translation of "Families", by Alvaro Mendes, was an official finalist at the 2016 Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest.
I was the recipient of a fully-funded translation residency at Cove Park, Scotland in 2019, and was selected for a residency at the Banff International Translation Centre.
Between literary projects, I also regularly translate both Portuguese and French texts for a variety of art galleries, contemporary art magazines, cultural organizations, museums, international credential evaluators, refugee resettlement agencies, ad agencies, and law firms. In 2017 I joined forces with four other London-based literary translators to found The Starling Bureau, a new, collaborative model in promoting the best books from around the globe.
Born and raised in southeastern Kentucky to a Canadian mother and an Appalachian father, I lived and worked in Brazil for several years, first in Maceió, then in São Paulo, and I continue to maintain strong ties with the country and its literary and publishing community. Over the past 15 years I’ve also spent extended periods living, studying, and working in Lisbon, Portugal. After eight years in grey London, I’m now based in sunny Miami.
Book Translations
The Curse of the Flores Women by Angélica Lopes
Amazon Crossing (UK & US)
Forthcoming, June 2024
Available for pre-order at Bookshop.org
Of Cattle And Men by
Ana Paula Maia
Charco (UK & US, 2023)
Winner of the Inaugural Cercador Prize, the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize and a PEN Translates Award Winner
Order from Bookshop.org UK or Bookshop.org US
“This short sharp shock of a book brings a surprise with every new page…a fresh and spirited report on how civilisation has done nothing to tame humanity’s worst instincts.”
“In Perry’s visceral, understated translation…the narrative unfolds with the compulsiveness of a psychological thriller.”
“An agricultural reckoning of near-biblical proportions, Maia and Perry’s brusque novella stalks and swaggers with a grim piety that permeates every page. OF CATTLE AND MEN is a masterwork of visceral drudgery.”
“Graceful and melancholic, enhanced by Zoë Perry’s subtle translation...”
“If Graciliano Ramos describes the old, romantic Brazil of a century ago, Emilio Fraia describes something much more like the country that exists today—the country and people I know... The translation is excellent, by the way.”
Co-translation with Stefan Tobler, And Other Stories (UK & US, 2013)
Order from And Other Stories | Bookshop.org UK | Bookshop.org US
Finalist for the Typographical Era Translation Award
“[The] translation impresses for the same reason as the novel itself: like the author, [the translators] are impeccable ventriloquists who have reproduced a voice that could never belong to anyone else, that is unmistakeable and utterly original, and they have also reproduced, equally flawlessly, the many other voices contained within it.”
“Part of the praise here, then, is due to the book’s translators, the creators of this perfectly modulated bit of high-propulsion English prose.”
Elza: The Girl by Sérgio Rodrigues,
Amazon Crossing
The Spy by Paulo Coelho,
Penguin Random House
Adultery by Paulo Coelho,
Penguin Random House
Longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award
Translated Stories, Extracts, and Essays
“My Good Friend” by Juliana Leite
Short story published in the Paris Review’s Issue 244, Summer 2023, June 2023
“Escape Heteropessimism” by Clara Drummond
Essay published in Astra Magazine, September 2022
“The Fisherman” by Veronica Stigger
Short story commissioned and published by TBA21–Academy, February 2022
"The Last Winter" by Vanessa Barbara
Short story published in Sobras by Chose Commune, 2017.
Pelé Will Live Forever By José Miguel Wisnik
Guest Essay published in The New York Times Opinion section, December 29, 2022.
“The Last Winter” by Vanessa Barbara
Short story published in n+1 Magazine, August 2022
“The Most Beautiful Ruins” by Carol Bensimon
Co-translation with Julia Sanches, Litro, September 2020
Selected chapters from Opisanie Swiata by Veronica Stigger, The Missing Slate, February 2017.
“The Jaguars” by Cristhiano Aguiar
Short story published in the Southwest Review’s special Halloween Issue, October 2022
Role Play by Maria Clara Drummond
First two chapters of the novel Role Play (Os coadjuvantes, Companhia das Letras, 2022), published in Astra Magazine, April 2022.
“The Trash-Pickers” by João Anzanello Carrascoza
Excerpt published in Latin American Literature Today, June 2021.
“A Story” by Emilio Fraia
Short story published in One Grand Journal, Summer 2021
Excerpt from Our Joy Has Come by Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Springhouse Journal, November 2019.
Excerpt from The Smoke Gardeners' Club by Carol Bensimon, The Washington Square Review, October 2017.
"The Time Left" by Carlos Henrique Schroeder, Words Without Borders - Brazil Beyond Rio Issue, July 2016.
Extract from Luxúria by Fernando Bonassi, Machado de Assis Magazine, November 2015.
Extract from Que Fim Levou a Juliana Klein? by Marcos Peres, Machado de Assis Magazine, November 2015.
"Tupi's Widow" by Alexandre Vidal Porto, Revista Pessoa - Contemporary Brazilian Literature: Special Edition, October 2015.
"Diary of a Lyrical Nihilist" by Evandro Affonso Ferreira, Revista Pessoa - Contemporary Brazilian Literature: Special Edition, October 2015.
Extract from Opisanie swiata by Veronica Stigger, Machado de Assis Magazine, March 2015.
'When Did I Become a Writer?' by Mia Couto, Granta Online, December 4, 2014.
“The Woman Who Slept with a Horse” by João Ximenes Braga, The Book of Rio, Comma Press, June 2014.
I also provide non-literary translation services on a variety of subjects from Portuguese and French, translating everything from exhibition guides, artist statements, and press releases to web content, music and film reviews, contracts, and journal articles. I have long-standing working relationships with translation companies, cultural institutes, museums, ad agencies, law firms, non-profit organizations, universities, literary agents, scouts, and publishers in several countries.
My academic background and interests include applied and socio-linguistics, international education, intercultural communication, film studies, and the social sciences.
I’ve translated several international award-winning (Cannes Lions, Clio, and One Show) advertising campaigns and case studies for Leo Burnett Lisbon and Ogilvy and Mather Brasil, and edited materials for Lowe Adventa-Moscow.
In addition, I have over fifteen years of experience translating educational and personal documents for international credential evaluation and immigration purposes, such as diplomas, certificates, transcripts, and course curricula.
Actively Pitching
Please get in touch for more information about any of these books.
Commissioned samples and pitch materials available for all titles below.
Unless noted otherwise, world English rights available on all titles.
As she awaits a call from a daughter who lives abroad, an elderly woman looks back on her life from the confines of her Rio apartment. Leite’s lyrical style, reminiscent of Natalia Ginzburg, reveals stories of friendship, marriage, death and dictatorship with wonder and even humor.
“My Good Friend”, short story by the author, The Paris Review.
A picture of a changing California through the lens of a wayward Brazilian teacher. The golden hippie days are long gone and growing weed, legally or otherwise, is mired in the same problems as any capitalist enterprise. In the vein of Emma Cline’s The Girls and with the documentary heft of “Murder Mountain”, The Smoke Gardeners Club is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a region in transition.
Jabuti winner, São Paulo prize finalist.
Extract in Washington Square Review.
Short story by the author in Litro.
Short story by the author in Cuír, from Two Lines.
Co-translation with Julia Sanches
While waiting for a flight, a woman runs into the palliative care physician who treated her late father, Artur, reawakening her grief. A powerful portrait of death, love, grief, and the search for identity. For fans of Annie Ernaux and Karl Ove Knausgård.
A young architect begins an intense romance with a man she meets on a dating app. Things appear to be going well until one day Pedro stops replying to Mirela’s messages and answering her calls, sending her spiralling. A sensitive portrayal of millennial love and the pain of being ghosted. For fans of the complex, raw emotions of Sally Rooney and the non-linear, fragmented style of Jenny Offill. Viral bestseller in Brazil.
In this genre-bending collection of short fiction, Stigger adopts a variety of forms: stories, epiphanies, poems, texts inspired by theatre. The result is as an absolutely irresistible whole, a terrifying and humorous exploration of our fragilities (both mental and corporeal).
Jabuti Finalist.
Selected Pieces in The White Review (2019)
Part of 2021 AOS Portuguese Reading Group - Sample & more info available here.
A down-on-his-luck western writer is presented with a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a film director's invitation: he wants Eugênio to write a film script. But there’s a catch: to write this script, Eugênio must spend three months isolated in a luxury hotel, with no contact with the world he knows.
A fascinating (often fantastical) book that spans decades of history and an ocean. A stunning and cinematic novel that feels at once contemporary and classic, a love letter to Brazilian modernism.
Prizes: Machado de Assis, Açorianos, São Paulo Literature prize, and finalist for Portugal Telecom & Jabuti.
2015 PEN/Heim grant.
I regularly provide sample translations to publishers, scouts, and agents, and I (used to) blog about the Brazilian literary landscape and books from other Portuguese-language markets at Gringa Reads. I am always up for a chat about Brazilian books, whether in-person or over the phone.