Can a White Writer Translate a Black Poet’s Work?

Hadija Haruna-Oelker, a Black journalist, has just produced the German translation of Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” the poem about a “skinny Black girl” that for many people was the highlight of President Biden’s inauguration.

So has Kübra Gümüsay, a German writer of Turkish descent.

As has Uda Strätling, a translator, who is white.