Susan Bernofsky's Blog, page 18

Apply Now: Modern Greek Translation Workshop at Princeton

The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University is offering an all-expenses-paid translation workshop for U.S.- and Canada-based early-career translators from Modern Greek, to be held in Princeton, NJ on Thursday, May 3, 2018. The workshop is part of a three-day series of events in Modern Greek Studies, including the annual International Graduate Student Conference in Modern Greek Studies (Friday, May 4, 2018) and a faculty-led colloquium on (Saturday, May 5, 2018). Translation workshop participants will be invited to attend all these events, as well as cultural activities surrounding them. Travel and lodging provided. The workshop, facilitated by Peter Constantine in collaboration with Karen Emmerich, will examine texts submitted in advance by participants.

To apply, send a brief note explaining your interest in and experience with translation from Greek, a CV, and a sample translation of no more than five (5) pages (include a copy of the Greek text being translated) to Karen Emmerich with a copy to Hellenic Studies at Princeton. For more information, see the Hellenic Studies website. The deadline for the receipt of applications is February 5, 2018.

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National Book Foundation Announces a National Book Award for Translated Literature

In an article in the New York Times this morning, the National Book Foundation (which gives out the prestigious National Book Awards) announced that beginning this year, annual awards will be presented in the category Literary Translation (joining the categories Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction and Young People’s Literature), with the prize honoring both the translator and the author of the translated work of fiction or nonfiction. Giving translation prizes isn’t new for the NBF: National Book Awards in Translation were given out between 1967 (to Gregory Rabassa, for One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and 1983 (to Richard Howard, for Les fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire), but the prize has been in abeyance for 35 years. I’m so glad it’s back! Having this major set of awards include translation among its genres is a powerful statement of the NBF’s belief in the importance of international literature and translation. As NBF executive director Lisa Lucas told the New York Times: “The less we know about the rest of the world, the worse off we are.” Like the other National Book Awards, this one comes with a prize of $10,000 (split between translator and author) and a commemorative sculpture, with $1000 for the runners-up. Application guidelines will be posted on May 7 on the National Book Foundation website, with a longlist expected the week of Sept. 10 and finalists on Oct. 10. The winner will be announced at the NBF’s annual award ceremony and gala on Nov. 14.

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2017 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation Announced

The winner of the 2017 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation has just been announced: the $1000 award judged by John Keene goes to Lisa Carter for her translation of an excerpt from Camila Reimers’ novel Tiempo de Ser (Time to Be), which will appear in the Spring issue of the journal. I hear this novel project hasn’t been snapped up by an English-language publisher yet, so if you might be interested, check it out!

Honorable mentions go to Jovan Albertson and Lizzie Buehler. For more information about the prize, visit the Gulf Coast website.

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Translation on Tap in NYC, Feb. 1 – 28, 2018

It feels like the new year just started, but it’s February already somehow. Fortunately there are some lovely translation events coming up to chase away the winter blues. Don’t let the flu catch you!

Friday, Feb. 2:

Readings in Translation: Harlequin Creature presents readings by Elisa Wouk Almino, Emily Beyda, & Bonnie Chau  followed by a discussion on the artistic practice of literary translation, moderated by Meghan Forbes. More information here. Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop, 141 Front St., Brooklyn, 7:00 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 11:

Us&Them: A Writer-Translator Reading Series. A special Manhattan installment of this Brooklyn-based reading series featuring writers who are also translators reading both their own and translated work will present Anne Ishii translating Gengoroh Tagame (Japanese); Madhu Kaza translating Vimala (Telugu); Taije Silverman translating Giovanni Pascoli (Italian); and Kyle Dacuyan translating Hervé Guibert (French). KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, Manhattan, 7:00 p.m.

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2018 PEN Translation Prize Shortlist Announced

PEN has just announced the shortlists for most of its major 2018 awards, including the PEN Translation Prize.

And I just heard the good news the the PEN Poetry in Translation Award, which PEN did not offer this year, apparently because of a funding issue (?), is going to be reinstated next year (with work published during the hiatus still eligible for consideration = double the competition!)

The winners of the PEN Translation Prize and all of PEN’s other extant awards will be presented in a ceremony on Feb. 20, 2018.

And now the shortlist:

The Book of Emma Reyes, Emma Reyes (Penguin)

translated from the Spanish by Daniel Alarcon

IndieBound

A Horse Walks into a Bar, David Grossman (Vintage)

translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen

IndieBound

Out in the Open, Jesus Carrasco (Riverhead Books)

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

IndieBound

The Impossible Fairy Tale, Han Yujoo (Graywolf Press)

translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

IndieBound

Katalin Street, Magda Szabo (NYRB Classics)

translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix

IndieBound

Congratulations to all the shortlisted translators, and may the best book win!

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Apply Now for American-Scandinavian Translation Awards

Every year the American-Scandinavian Foundation holds competitions for two translation awards, the Nadia Christensen Prize for an outstanding translation of poetry, fiction, drama, or literary nonfiction from a Nordic language, and the Leif and Inger Sjöberg Award for work by a previously unpublished translator. Each prize comes with a purse ($2500 and $2000, respectively), publication of an excerpt from the work in Scandinavian Review, and a commemorative brass medallion. The names of past winners of the prize can be found on the website of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, as can the complete rules governing this year’s competitions.

In 2017 the Nadia Christensen Prize was awarded to Maija Liisa Mäkinen for her translation of an excerpt from Pelon maantiede (Geography of Fear), by Finnish author Anja Snellman. The Leif and Inger Sjöberg Award was presented to Melissa Bowers for her translation of Vittnen till meningslösa händelser (Witness to Meaningless Events) by Swedish Poet Jasim Mohamed.

The deadline for submitting work for this year’s competitions is June 15, 2018.

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Apply Now for 2018 Gutekunst Prize

Applications are now being accepted for the 2018 Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe. This is the prize formerly known as just the “Gutekunst Prize,” but as of 2017 its funding has been taken over by the Friends of Goethe NY. This competition invites young translators (defined as under 35 and unpublished in book form) to submit translations of a single text of approx. 22 pages provided by the organizers. The prize comes with a $2500 purse and professional recognition that is sure to come in handy for a prizewinner interested in making a career in literary translation. To enter the competition, request a sample from Walter Schlect of the Goethe-Institut New York library. This year’s submission deadline is March 16, 2018. There’s no point playing if you’re not playing to win, so request the sample text right away so you can start working on your translation with plenty of time for revisions.

For more information about the prize and application guidelines, see the Gutekunst Prize page on the Goethe-Institut New York website.

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TA First Translation Prize Shortlist Announced

The TA First Translation Prize (TA stands for “Translators Association”) was founded and endowed last spring by translator Daniel Hahn, who in an incredible act of generosity plunked down half his winnings from the International Dublin Literary Award for the purpose. The prize is also supported by the British Council, and will be presented along with the nine other annual translation awards given out by the Society of Authors’ Translators Association each February. This new prize is special for several different reasons. Its being funded by a translator is exceptional but not unique. It’s equally unusual for being a prize for a first book in translation. And it’s sui generis as a prize that equally honors the translator and the editor of the book (who will split the £2000 purse), acknowledging the all-too-seldom-acknowledged fact that editors can have an enormous impact on the quality of a translated book, particularly in the case of a first book by a translator. And in many cases an editor has gone out on a limb by offering a brand-new translator their first book-length gig, and this bravery too merits celebration, as does their acuity in recognizing new talent. So bravo, well done, and thank you, Danny, for launching this very special prize.

Behold this year’s shortlisted translators and editors of books published in the UK between April 2016 and March 2017:

Francesca Barrie, shortlisted with her editor Clare Bullock for her translation from the French of Tiphaine Rivière’s Notes on a Thesis (Jonathan Cape)
Elisabeth Jaquette, shortlisted with her editors Sal Robinson, Taylor Sperry and Željka Marošević for her translation from the Arabic of Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue (Melville House UK)
Eliza Marciniak, shortlisted with her editors Max Porter and Ka Bradley for her translation from the Polish of Wioletta Greg’s Swallowing Mercury (Portobello Books)
Mui Poopoksakul, shortlisted with her editor Deborah Smith for her translation from the Thai of Prabda Yoon’s The Sad Part Was (Tilted Axis Press)
Bela Shayevich, shortlisted with her editor Jacques Testard for her translation from the Russian of Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Jeffrey Zuckerman, shortlisted with his editors Cécile Menon and Angeline Rothermundt for his translation from the French of Ananda Devi’s Eve Out of Her Ruins (Les Fugitives)

You’ll find more details about the prize and the books (and more pictures!) on the Society of Authors website.

In the words of Daniel Hahn, who is serving as a judge this year along with Rosalind Harvey and Bill Swainson, “That’s four novels, a graphic novel and a work of non-fiction. They come from five languages, from six countries (France, Poland, Belarus, Mauritius, Egypt, Thailand). And five of the six books were written by women.” How do you like that? I for one am pretty chuffed.

I’d also like to point out the one of the books on the list, Swallowing Mercury, was co-published with Transit Books in the U.S., itself a brand-new publishing house for translated books (not its very first book, but I think only the second).

There are books on this list that I’ve seen long- and shortlisted for other prizes as well. This bodes well for the future of our profession. Many congratulations to all these spectacularly successful translation debutants!

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Introducing The Queer Translation Collective

At the American Literary Translators Association conference this past October, I attended an excellent panel entitled Re-Queering Translation that included several participants from the University of Oregon which, as chance would have it, is officially launching its Oregon Center for Translation Studies today. If you’re in or near Eugene, check it out! One of the presentations on this panel was the reading of a manifesto written by U. of Oregon graduate student Jon D. Jaramillo. This manifesto, “Queer(ing) Translation,” pushes back against translation practices that serve to codify and enforce heteronormative cisgender modes, calling instead for playful, inventive explorations into alternative translation practices that better support and represent a wider range of identities. Here’s the manifesto’s opening gambit:

Queer(ing) translation (QT) is a political process that emphasizes bodies. It is a practice that emphasizes alternative bodies on the margins of exclusions, abjections, and oppressions, in movement, in transformation, and in a fluidity of expressions, embodiments, and manifestations. QT practice challenges and complicates the grammar of identity with synonyms, antonyms, and rhetorical dissonance. It rejects the binary use of gendered pronouns that erases same sex desire. It embraces pronoun playfulness. It underscores the relationship between translation and Walter Benjamin’s trans-living, the survival or “living on” of an original text rendered in translation.

As we know from reading Schleiermacher, language shapes us as much as we shape it, and thinking critically about our language use in translation as well as other forms of writing has to be part of any mindful literary practice. I found Jaramillo’s project immediately compelling (and clearly influenced by the manifestos on Discomfortable Writing, Ultratranslation, and Language Justice put out by Antena). So I was delighted to see that “Queer(ing) Translation” – like these other manifestos – is now available online. It’s presented as a cornerstone of a new translation community, the Queer Translation Collective, which is actively seeking new members. If the project interests you, I hope you’ll sign up and contribute, since a community like this needs participants to make progress toward its goals. On the QTC website, you’ll find a blog open to posts by community members, and also the full text of the manifesto ready to download and share. Bravo to Jon Jaramillo for calling this project into being; I look forward to watching it grow.

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2017 Modern Language Association Translation Prizes Awarded

The Modern Language Association Convention, held this past long-weekend in New York, included the presentation of the MLA’s three translation prizes. Although the convention is now held in January, it used to be held in December, which is why this year’s prizes are dated 2017 (awarded for works published in 2016) rather than 2018. Each of these three now annual (formerly biennial) prizes comes with a cash award.

The Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work went to Jeffrey Angles for his translation of The Book of the Dead by Orikuchi Shinobu (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2016), with honorable mentions to Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes (New Directions, 2016) and Sam Taylor for his translation of The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016).

The Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature went to Alexandra Berlina for her translation of Viktor Shklovsky: A Reader (Bloomsbury, 2016) with an honorable mention to Lahcen Elyazghi Ezzaher for Three Arabic Treatises on Aristotle’s Rhetoric: The Commentaries of al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes (Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 2015).

The Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work went to Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson for their translation of Graveyard Clay / Cré na Cille: A Narrative in Ten Interludes by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (Yale Univ. Press, 2016), with honorable mentions to Esther Allen for Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto (New York Review Books, 2016) and Amy B. Reid for Mount Pleasant by Patrice Nganang (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016).

Congratulations to all the translators honored with these awards!

For lists of past winners of these awards, visit the MLA website.

The competition for the MLA’s 2018 translation awards, to be presented in January 2019, is now open for books published during 2017 (deadline for submissions: April 1, 2018).

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