Literary Translation and AI: A Roundtable

Globally, publishing houses have begun to explore AI for literary translation. This development has exposed what Jitka Zehnalová & Helena Kubátová (“The Profession of Literary Translator in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, 2026) call the “constant tension between a sense of purpose, systemic vulnerability, and everyday negotiation” in the profession. The tension is illustrated by a UK survey (Society of Authors 2024): over 30% of book translators reported losing work to generative AI. A similar proportion had used generative AI in their translation process, sometimes in response to a publisher’s request.

Addressing this critical juncture for the profession, our roundtable asks: What does generative AI mean for the future of literary translation? And how can literary translators shape the future of this human profession?

The panel will address questions including:

• How is the work of literary translation meaningful in the age of AI?

• In what ways does human translation differ from AI translation?

• Is co-translation with AI desirable, and if so, in what conditions? If not, why not?

• What is gained and what is lost?

Participants: Judith Bishop (La Trobe Uni, moderator), Ward Peeters (Linguistics, Monash Uni), Brigid Maher (Italian Studies, La Trobe Uni),  Adam Zulawnik (Korean Studies, University of Melbourne).

Dr Judith Bishop is a Tracey Banivanua Mar research fellow in Languages and Cultures at La Trobe University. An award-winning poet, she is now writing a creative nonfiction book about AI and human data titled Giving Ourselves Away.

Brigid Maher is Associate Professor of Italian Studies and Coordinator of Learning and Teaching in La Trobe University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is a researcher in the field of translation studies and a translator of contemporary Italian literature.

Ward Peeters is Lecturer in Linguistics and the Director of the Master of Applied Linguistics at Monash University. He has coordinated research projects in Australia, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands and South Africa as part of an extensive study on computer-assisted language learning, epistemic network analysis and large language modeling. Ward is editor of the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (John Benjamins Publishing) and TESOL in Context (ACTA).

Adam Zulawnik is Lecturer in Korean Studies at the Asia Institute, The University ofMelbourne. Adam completed his PhD in Translation Studies and his teaching and research broadly span Korean, Japanese, and Translation Studies.