Jose Carlos Ramos Murguia – Translator

English-Spanish/Spanish-English translator and proofreader. I specialize in literary fiction, but have worked and will work on non-fiction, science, history, and sociology texts.
For over ten years, I have worked as a translator and proofreader for some of the largest publishers in the Spanish speaking world (Penguin Random House, Planeta) as well as with smaller independent ones (like the award-winning Perla Ediciones), newspapers, magazines and academic journals. Overall, I’ve been involved, in one way or another, in the publishing process of over 60 books, dozens of articles and several poems and short stories. My published translations range from YA fiction, memoirs and biographies, historical novels, a few things that have been adapted for TV and films (like Modern Love) to a couple of older classics.
My main focus as a translator is language itself: while I completely understand that things like the plot or the “point” of your text are very important —don’t worry, I would never neglect them— I am 100% convinced that the only way in which these larger aspects of the text can truly get through to the reader is by identifying and highlighting that which makes the text unique in its language. If what you wrote is funny, insightful, ironic, poignant or beautiful, I want to make sure that I understand where any of those things come from and do my best to showcase them in the translated version, even if it is at the expense of what the dictionary says is the “correct” way to translate something. After all, “the medium is the message”.