Heather Cleary is an award-winning translator of poetry and prose, based in Mexico City
Heather Cleary’s writing has appeared in Two Lines, Lit Hub, and Poets & Writers, among other publications. Her book, The Translator’s Visibility: Scenes from Contemporary Latin American Fiction, shows how narratives of translation can upend established notions of intellectual property and propriety. She co-edited McSweeney’s 65: Plundered with Valeria Luiselli and Tsunami with Gabriela Jauregui, and is currently writing a novel about translation and betrayal.
Her translations include Luis Felipe Fabre’s Recital of the Dark Verses (winner, Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Translation Prize), Fernanda Trías’s Pink Slime (winner, English PEN Award and nominee, National Book Award), Roque Larraquy’s Comemadre (nominee, National Book Award), Sergio Chejfec’s The Planets (finalist, Best Translated Book Award), and Poems to Read on a Streetcar, a selection of Oliverio Girondo’s poetry.
Together with Julia Sanches, she is the co-translator of Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025.
A blisteringly urgent collection of interconnected stories about contemporary Mexican women. Extremely funny but deadly serious, it absolutely bangs from the first page to the last
— The 2025 judges on Reservoir Bitches
Translated by Julia Sanches Heather Cleary
