Mark Schafer

Mark Schafer was born in Concord, Massachusetts, an expat descendent of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He was raised in Acton, Massachusetts; attended Wesleyan University and Boston University; and studied literary translation with Gregory Rabassa and Magda Bogin in New York City.

A noted translator from Spanish, Schafer has translated poetry, fiction, and essays by authors from around the Spanish-speaking world, with a focus on Mexican literature. His translations include Migrations: Poem, 1976–2020 (poetry by Gloria Gervitz), The Scale of Maps (a novel by Belén Gopegui), Before Saying Any of the Great Words (poetry by David Huerta), Stripping Away the Sorrows of This World (stories by Jesús Gardea), Mogador: The Names of the Air (a novel by Alberto Ruy Sánchez), René’s Flesh and Cold Tales (a novel and short stories by Virgilio Piñera); the long poem “A Few Words on the Death of Major Sabines,” by Jaime Sabines; essays by Antonio José Ponte; and the forthcoming novel Stay This Day and Night With Me, by Belén Gopegui, among other works. 

His honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Banff International Literary Translation Centre residency program; grants from the Fund for Culture Mexico-USA, the Mexican National Fund for Culture and the Arts Translation Support Program (PROTRAD), the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Arlington Arts Council; and the Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize. He is a founding member of the Boston Area Literary Translators Group.

Schafer has lived in Sweden, Colombia, and Mexico. He currently resides with his wife, the translator Marjorie Salvodon, and his daughter in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the traditional and unceded territory of the Massachusett people. He is a senior lecturer in Spanish at the University of Massachusetts Boston, an award-winning visual artist, and a community arts activist