Susan Bernofsky's Blog, page 9

Children’s Books in Translation

A good twenty-five years ago, I translated a children’s story I loved (“Anna the Hobbledy-Witch” by Franz Fühmann) and sent it to Cricket Magazine, which I’d read throughout my childhood (starting with Issue 1 Number 1 in 1973) and which had often published work in translation. This was a story about a young witch who had legs of two different lengths, on account of which she was cruelly teased, but then she learned that her special legs gave her special powers, which she put to use … happy end. Anyhow, I got back a letter from Cricket saying that it was tricky to publish anything for kids these (= those) days involving disabilities, and that witches were kind of off-limits too, so I gave up. And started thinking about how few children’s authors from my own childhood traveled internationally. In the 1990s, Dr. Seuss wasn’t readily available in German. A few books of his had been translated into German in the 1970s and were long out of print – they didn’t become perennial favorites as in the U.S. Now, though, there are (re)translations of a number of Seuss’s works available in German, published and translated by several hands (including one translated by  author Felicitas Hoppe). I wonder how they’re doing. Conversely, American children are oblivious to the existence of Janosch, an author as wildly popular in the German-speaking countries as Dr. Seuss was/is here. Janosch’s books, too, had been translated into English in the 1970s and 1980s, hadn’t caught on, and had gone out of print. Eventually in the first decade of the 2000s, his German publisher started publishing new translations of his lovely books into English by the great Anthea Bell.

At the same time, there were always children’s books that fared well internationally. Think of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a longstanding classic in many languages. And a number of the large publishing houses in the U.S. (e.g. Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster) have children’s book divisions that sometimes publish kid lit in translation. Not long ago, I stumbled across some lists of 100 great kids’ books in translation put together by translators Avery Fischer Udagawa and Marcia Lynx Qualey.

A number of independent publishing houses in the U.S. have been getting into the kids-books-in-translation game, too, and since I don’t know much about this but want to learn, I asked Sara Lissa Paulson, the librarian at City-As-School who is also coincidentally translating several Spanish-language children’s books into English, to say something about the current state of affairs. Here’s her report:

Independent Publishers of International Children’s Books

By Sara Lissa Paulson

Children’s publishing is booming worldwide. That we know, but it may not be apparent that children’s literature is profoundly poetic, philosophical, and full of wonder, and like literary fiction, found in every language. Children’s books from beyond our borders promote empathy and cross-cultural understanding, yet they tend to lie outside the radar of most translators and publishers.

That said, several outstanding independent publishers have been translating children’s literature for decades:

Enchanted Lion Books, Brooklyn-based, has been publishing translations and original books in translation since 2003. Their website highlights translators, authors, and illustrators, reflecting the thoughtful and generous approach to both language and image crafting. Their care and love of book-making (and young readers’ meaning-making) has resulted in dozens of publishing awards and more than a handful ALA Batchelder awards and honors, given annually to the best translated children’s book published in the US. Look for the announcement of the 2019 winner on January 28 at 11 a.m.!

Groundwood Books, based in Toronto, specializes in underrepresented cultures, especially from the First Nations of Canada and other languages of the Americas. Like Enchanted Lion, they publish original books as well as translations.

Gecko Books, a press in New Zealand, primarily publishes translations, but also publishes New Zealand authors and illustrators.

Phaidon, the outlier on this list due to their multilingual output, publishes design-oriented children’s books in translation each year.

And independent publishers Chronicle and NorthSouth have brought unforgettable European titles into the English-speaking world.

 Most recently, Restless Books publishes children’s books in translation, Archipelago opened its doors to kid lit by establishing Elsewhere, its non-profit imprint for “visionary children’s literature,” while Eerdman’s Books for Young Readers, the Dutch-American publisher in the religious publishing business since 1910, continues to publish a select number of books in translation each year that present emotionally complex issues that children face courageously each day.

Horn Book regularly blogs about children’s books in translations, as does School Library Journal. IBBY creates a biennial honor list of the best international children’s titles, while the International Youth Library publishes the White Ravens annual list of international gems and maintains a database of honored titles that can be searched by year of selection.

Follow the green-lighted trails to find out more, and consider turning your translating pens children’s-lit-ward.

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Apply Now To Translate in Banff in Summer 2019

Banff is the most beautiful place to visit, and spending three weeks there working on your translations in a supportive environment with regular seminars and talks – what could be better? The Banff International Literary Translation Centre (affectionately known as BILTC) will be back in business this coming June, and you too could be there getting your work critiqued, hiking up breathtakingly beautiful mountains (or taking the cable car), and hanging out with other translators and artists. The deadline to apply this year is coming right up, so do check out the information (and application form) Banff Centre website. Scholarships and travel stipends are available. This year’s application deadline is Jan. 30, 2019.

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2019 Close Approximations Translation Prizes Announced

The translation-centric journal Asymptote has sponsored the Close Approximations Translation Prize since 2013, and the 2019 winners have just been announced in the categories Fiction (judged by Edward Gauvin) and Poetry (judged by Eugene Ostashevsky). Each prize comes with a purse of $1000 (with $250 for each of the runners-up) and publication in the journal. Which means that you can have the satisfaction of clicking through to read all the prize-winning translations right now!

Here they are:

The 2019 winner of the Close Approximations Translation Prize in Fiction is Olivia Hellewell for her translation of an excerpt from Katja Perat’s The Masochist. The two runners up are Kevin Gerry Dunn for his translation of an excerpt from Daniela Tarazona’s The Animal on the Rock; and Alison McCullough for her translation of an excerpt from Tore Kvæven’s When the Land Darkens.

In Poetry, the prize has gone to Daniel Owen for his translation of a selection of poems from Afrizal Malna’s Document Shredding Museum; with honorable mentions to Catherine Platt for her translation of a selection of poems from Han Bo’s The Western Days, and J. Bret Maney for his translation of a selection of poems from Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s The River in the Belly.

For more information about the prizes and translations (including the judges’ citations), visit the Asymptote website.

Warm congratulations to all the lauded translators! Oh, and be sure to check out the rest of Asymptote’s new issue with literature from a mind-boggling 35 countries!

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2018 Society of Authors Translation Prize Shortlists Announced

The Society of Authors in the UK – of which the excellent Translators Association (TA) forms one division – has just announced the shortlists for the various translation prizes it gives out every year. The prizes themselves will be announced and awarded during a grand ceremony in London in early February. All these prizes celebrate works that were published in the UK in 2017, and there are a number of categories, so if you’d like to read your way through the shortlists and place bets on the winners, time to get reading!

Behold the lists:

The TA First Translation Prize, which goes to a first-time translator of a book-length work and their editor:

Gini Alhadeff and her editor Barbara Epler for a translation of I Am the Brother of XX (And Other Stories) translated from Italian
Janet Hong and her editor Ethan Nosowsky for a translation of The Impossible Fairytale by Han Yujoo (Tilted Axis Press) translated from Korean
Fionn Petch and his editor Annie McDermott for a translation of Fireflies (Charco Press) translated from Spanish
Alex Valente and his editor Federico Andornino for a translation of Can You Hear Me? (Two Roads Books) translated from Italian

The John Florio Prize for translations from Italian:

Gini Alhadeff for her translation of I Am the Brother of XX (And Other Stories) by Fleur Jaeggy
Jamie McKendrick for his translation of Within the Walls by Giorgio Bassani (Penguin Classics)
Mario Petrucci for his translation of Xenia by Eugenio Montale (Arc Publications)
Cristina Viti for her translation of Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari (Shearsman Books)
Cristina Viti for her translation of The World Saved by Kidsby Elsa Morante (Seagull Books)

The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translations from German:

Susan Bernofsky for her translation of Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (Granta)
Jen Calleja for her translation of Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel (Peirene Press)
Tony Crawford for his translation of Wonder Beyond Belief by Navid Kermani (Polity Press)
Tess Lewis for her translation of Kruso by Lutz Seiler (Scribe)
Stefan Tobler for his translation of The Old King in his Exile (And Other Stories) by Arno Geiger:

The Scott Moncrieff Prize for translations from French:

Aneesa Abbas Higgins for her translation of Seven Stones by Vénus Khoury-Ghata (Jacaranda Books)
Sophie Lewis for her translation of Blue Self-Portrait by Noémi Lefebvre (Les Fugitives)
Helen Stevenson for her translation of Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (Profile Books)
Frank Wynne for his translation of Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes (MacLehose Press)
Sophie Yanow for her translation of Pretending is Lying by Dominique Goblet (New York Review Comics)

The Bernard Shaw Prize for translations from Swedish:

Deborah Bragan-Turner for her translation of The Parable Book by Per Olov Enquist (MacLehose Press)
Sarah Death for her translation of Wilful Disregard by Lena Andersson (Picador)
John Irons for his translation of Selected Poems by Lars Gustafsson (Bloodaxe Books)
Frank Perry for his translation of Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs by Lina Wolff (and other stories)

The Premio Valle Inclán Prize for translations from Spanish:

Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles for their translation of Inventing Loveby José Ovejero (Peter Owen Publishers)
Daniel Hahn for his translation of In the Land of Giantsby Gabi Martínez (Scribe)
Megan McDowell for her translation of Seeing Redby Lina Meruane (Atlantic)
Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff for their translation of Die, My Loveby Ariana Harwicz (Charco Press)

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for translations from Arabic:

Ben Koerber for his translation of Using Life  by Ahmed Naji (CMES Publications)
Luke Leafgren for his translation of The President’s Gardensby Muhsin Al-Ramli (MacLehose Press)
Khaled Mattawa for his translation of Concerto al-Quds by Adonis (Yale University Press)
Jonathan Wright for his translation of Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Oneworld)

In the case of the Banipal Prize, which is announced on an earlier schedule, we exceptionally already know who the winner is: Luke Leafgren for his translation of The President’s Gardensby Muhsin Al-Ramli (MacLehose Press). Big translations to Luke and best of luck to all the other translators competing for prizes.

More information about all the prizes and shortlisted books can be found on the Society of Authors website.

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2018 Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize Announced

Kyoko Selden

Every year the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University awards the Kyoko Selden Memorial Prize for unpublished works translated from Japanese by previously published translators as well as emerging translators. Each prize comes with a purse of $1500 and publication in the Asian Pacific Journal Japan Focus. The prize was established to honor the memory of Kyoko Selden, who taught in the program and was herself a prolific translator as well as writer and scholar. This year’s prize for a new work by a  previously published translator has gone to Dawn Lawson for her translation of A Famous Flower in Mountain Seclusion (山間の名花) from 1889 by Nakajima Shōen. This work is now available on the Asian Pacific Journal website. Congratulations to Dawn Lawson on being selected for this award!

For information on submitting work for this year’s competition and on past winners of the prize, please visit the Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize website.

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Translation on Tap in NYC, Jan. 1 – 31, 2019

It’s a new year, we have a new House of Representatives, and let’s hope it will be a year of liberating, positive change. If you weren’t sure what to pick as a New Year’s resolution, there’s always the great option: attend more translation events. They attract kind, internationally oriented folks and are a great way to spend an evening in excellent company (as well as learning things, being entertained, edified, uplifted…).

Here’s what’s on tap:

Friday, Jan. 25:

Launch event for Guy Hocquenghem’s The Amphitheater of the Dead featuring translator Max Fox joined by Wayne Koestenbaum. More information here. McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St., 7:00 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 31:

Us & Them, a reading series featuring writers who are also translators reading their own work as well as translations. This season’s lineup features Aaron Coleman, Kimi Traube, Tim Mohr, and Janet Lee. More information here. Molasses Books, 770 Hart St., Brooklyn, 8:00 p.m.

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Translate at Bread Loaf in Summer 2019

©Todd Balfour

I had a wonderful (if busy) time at the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference in Ripton, Vermont last year – my second time teaching in their intensive weeklong translation boot camp – and recommend it highly to translators who could use a week of input and feedback to bring their translation practice to the next level. The week includes four days of workshops, plus lectures, craft classes, and chances to meet with a range of visitors from the translation publishing world, all while hanging out in a gorgeous part of the country with beautiful hikes and woodland strolls in every direction. I love the place.

If you want to apply, you’ll choose between “manuscript workshops” in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction for more experienced practitioners and the introductory workshop for beginners or those who feel they’re still close enough to starting out that a nuts and bolts workshop makes more sense than getting their own work critiqued. The faculty next summer will include John Balcom, Edward Gauvin, Elisabeth Jaquette, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Emily Wilson, and the dates are May 31 – June 6, 2019. The guests will include Chris Fischbach, Publisher, Coffee House Press; Markus Hoffmann, Co-owner, Regal Hoffmann & Associates LLC; Tynan Kogane, Editor, New Directions; Carolyn Kuebler, Editor, New England Review; Yana Makuwa, Editorial Assistant, Graywolf Press; Chad W. Post, Publisher, Open Letter; Olivia E. Sears, Founder, Center for the Art of Translation and Two Lines; and Matvei Yankelevich, Editor, Ugly Duckling Presse.

As an added bonus, the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference takes place concurrently – there are joint readings, and all meals are served in the big communal dining room, so there are many opportunities for conviviality. (Yes, you can also just sit by yourself in a corner if that’s what you prefer).

Applications for the 5th Annual Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference/ Summer 2019 are open now and being read on a rolling basis until Feb. 15, but certain workshops may fill up before that time, so get your application in soon if you’re interested. To apply, and for information on fees and scholarship aid, visit the Bread Loaf website.

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2019 PEN Translation Prize Longlists Announced

PEN America has just announced the longlists for the 2019 PEN Translation Prize (for a book-length work of translated fiction) and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (for a book of translated poems). Each prize comes with a purse of $3000.00. This year’s jury in fiction includes Ezra Fitz, Barbara Harshav, Vincent Kling, Marian Schwartz, and Ron Slate; the poetry jury is comprised of Sinan Antoon, Ewa Chrusciel, Peter Filkins, and Katrine Øgaard Jensen. Here are this year’s longlists:

PEN Translation Prize Longlist:

Nevada Days, Bernardo Atxaga (Graywolf Press)

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter, Matei Calinescu (NYRB)

Translated from the Romanian by Adriana Calinescu

Disoriental, Négar Djavadi (Europa Editions)

Translated from the French by Tina Kover

The Stone Building and Other Places, Aslı Erdoğan (City Lights)

Translated from the Turkish by Sevinç Türkkan

Mourning, Eduardo Halfon (Bellevue Literary Press)

Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn

Moon Brow, Shahriar Mandanipour (Restless Books)

Translated from the Persian by Sara Khalili

Love, Hanne Ørstavik (Archipelago Books)

Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken

CoDex 1962, Sjón (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

Trick, Domenico Starnone (Europa Editions)

Translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri

Aetherial Worlds, Tatyana Tolstaya (Alfred A. Knopf)

Translated from the Russian by Anya Migdal

PEN Award for Poetry in Translation Longlist:

The Shutters, Ahmed Bouanani (New Directions)

Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan

Aperture, Jacek Dehnel (Zephyr Press)

Translated from the Polish by Karen Kovacik

Revolution Goes Through Walls, Safaa Fathy (SplitLevel Texts)

Translated from the Arabic by Safaa Fathy and Pierre Joris

Today, Juan Gelman (co•im•press)

Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Rose Bradford

Autobiography of Death, Kim Hyesoon (New Directions)

Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi

Negative Space, Luljeta Lleshanaku (New Directions)

Translated from the Albanian by Ani Gjika

A Certain Plume, Henri Michaux (NYRB)

Translated from the French by Richard Sieburth

Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania, Adam Mickiewicz (Archipelago)

Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston

Stormwarning, Kristín Tómasdóttir (Phoneme Media)

Translated from the Icelandic by K.B. Thors

Asymmetry, Adam Zagajewski (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh

For more information on the books and prizes, visit the PEN America website. Congratulations to all the longlisted translators!

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2018 Modern Language Association Translation Prizes Announced

The Modern Language Association (MLA) has announced the winners of the two translation prizes that will be presented at its annual convention this year, to be held in Chicago from Jan. 3-6, 2019. The Lois Roth Award for a Translation of a Literary Work and the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglioni Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work are each awarded annually for the translation of a book-length work; each comes with a $1000 purse. (The Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature is biennial and will be awarded again next year.) I was delighted to learn that my own translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Go, Went, Gone had been selected for the 2018 Lois Roth Award, with an honorable mention to Alistair Ian Blyth for his translation of Varujan Vosganian’s The Book of Whispers. The Aldo and Jeanne Scaglioni Prize is being awarded to Alissa Valles for her translation of Our Life Grows by Ryszard Krynicki, with an honorable mention to Jeffrey Yang for his translation of Bei Dao’s City Gate, Open Up. Both prizes will be presented at a ceremony during the MLA Convention in Chicago on Jan. 5, 2019. Congratulations to all the translators whose work is being recognized!

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2018 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation Announced

The Gulf Coast Prize in Translation was judged by Ilya Kaminsky this year, and the $1000 award has been split between two winners: Valzhyna Mort for her translation of “Air Raid” by Polina Barskova and Mary Jo Bang for her translation of “Colonies of Paradise” by Matthias Göritz. An honorable mention goes to Kelsi Vanada. For more information about the winning translations and the other finalists for the prize, visit the Gulf Coast website. The translations themselves will appear in the Spring 2019 issue of Gulf Coast. Congratulations to the translators whose work was chosen for this prize!

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