Steven K. Smith

Description

A high school year abroad in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul ignited a passion for Portuguese that continued throughout my educational and professional life. I hold bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Portuguese Language & Literature. I served a total of 17 years as Associate Director of two prominent UW–Madison research centers and five as Secretary of the Faculty. I worked as an escort interpreter for the US State Department, have taught a wide variety of language, culture, and literature classes, and have been a full-time translator since 2019. My published translations, include “The Purple Stain” (Plínio Marcos’s “A mancha roxa”), “She Sings, Poor Reaper” (Fernando Pessoa’s “Ela Canta, Pobre Ceifeira”), and a graphic novel (“Last Call to Leave Earth” by Cassio Ribeiro; Nakama Press, 2026). My translation of Pedro Brício’s Um jardim para Tchekhov (An Orchard for Chekhov) was staged by Upstream Theater in St. Louis, MO, in November 2025. I have also translated a wide variety of documents in the areas of law, social sciences, and medicine and my dissertation on Brazilian theater (“Palcos Políticos: Activist Theater in São Paulo, Brazil, at the Turn of the Millennium”) has been published in book form.