The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize > Likes and Comments
I have actually read 4 of these already. I feel a dynamic ranking coming on!
I haven't read any yet! I have the Daoud and the Knausgaard. I had Oksanen at one time, and it was reviewed on my site by Lori Feathers., but I didn't keep it. I'd love to see your rankings, though, Paul. Sounds like Laurus is one you'd recommend.
Actually it would be1 Mersault Investigation (read with The Stranger)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2 The Heart of Man (but one needs to read the other two parts of the trilogy first, not stand alone)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3 Laurus
[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - not completed]
4 Dancing in the Dark
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Although all 4 are very strong books.
It is more that Laurus seemed to miss out in this year's awards and deserves the attention - and actually I haven't quite finished that one yet.
Your reviews made me interested in Stefansson a while back, Tony. I just need to follow up on that interest!
Yes it was Tony that got me interested in Stefansson as well.
Ha! Good to see *someone* is listening (Boyd wasn't...)!
And Philip Roughton wins for Heart of Man jointly with Paul Vincent/John Irons for the Dutch poems.
Paul wrote: "And Philip Roughton wins for Heart of Man jointly with Paul Vincent/John Irons for the Dutch poems."Yay for Roughton - and JKS!
(Still waiting for my review copy of his new one to arrive in the post...)
The 2017 shortlist is out:Ben Faccini for Lydie Salvayre’s Cry, Mother Spain (MacLehose)
Philip Ó Ceallaigh for Mihail Sebastian’s For Two Thousand Years (Penguin Classics)
Natasha Wimmer for Álvaro Enrigue’s Sudden Death (Harvill Secker)
Frank Perry for Lina Wolff’s Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs (And Other Stories)
Lisa Dillman for Yuri Herrera’s The Transmigration of Bodies (And Other Stories)
Lisa C. Hayden for Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina (Oneworld)
Rawley Grau for Dušan Šarotar’s Panorama (Peter Owen World Series)
Arthur Goldhammer for In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel (Gallic)
Of those I have read:
Panorama - which I was disappointed not to see on the MBI list (it has similarities with War & Turpentine but much better) - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and
Sudden Death, which I found rather flawed but which has generally been very well received - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
There is on 3 June a day of lectures and events in Oxford, culminating in the prize ceremony - all free to attend (but need to register) http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/oxford-trans...
I haven't read any of these. I started Sudden Death, set it aside and never went back to it. I have Bret Easton Ellis and other dogs and The Transmigration of Bodies sitting on my shelf waiting for me. I'd love to read the graphic novel version of Swann's Way. . The rest of them are unfamiliar to me.
Laurus was shortlisted in 2016
Lisa is a Goodread-er so it's nice to see her applauded for her talents.
So happy that a Romanian writer, Mihail Sebastian was nominated. I read the novel this year and I can say that the book deserved to be shortlisted. I did not read the English version but I had a conversation with an amazing bookseller at Waterstones Picadilly and he said that the translation was very good.
'For Two Thousand Years' is excellent, and I'd love to see it win. Interesting that Lisa Hayden has been shortlisted again, while Russian lit has been studiously ignored by the MBIP/IFFP in recent years...
And the winner is Frank Perry for Lina Wolff’s Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs (And Other Stories)
2018 shortlist out:Dorthe Nors, Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra (Pushkin Press)
Yoko Tawada, Memoirs of a Polar Bear, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (Portobello Books)
Pablo Neruda, Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems, translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander (Bloodaxe Books)
Émile Zola, Une Page d'amour, translated from the French by Helen Constantine (Oxford University Press)
Louis Guilloux, Blood Dark, translated from the French by Laura Marris (New York Review Books)
Andrés Barba, Such Small Hands, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (Portobello Books)
Édouard Louis, The End of Eddy, translated from the French by Michael Lucey (Harvill Secker)
Daša Drndić, Belladonna, translated from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth (MacLehose Press)
Mirror Shoulder Signal - really?
I have read 3 - great to see Such Small Hands which was a bizarre omission from the MBI and the BTBA (our MBI shadow jury seriously considered calling it in) and Belladonna (which again missed out on both). Mirror. Shoulder. Signal - not such a fan. Even the title isn't great - surely should be rendered Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre?
I also have Tawada's new novel (different translator though) just arrived from Netgalley. Memoirs of a Polar Bear has done very well in awards but the concept doesn't really appeal.
Think title is fine. Look in your mirror, look over your shoulder, signal. Sound advice.That’s the only one I’ve read and I didn’t like it.
Not sure I will even attempt any of the others given the pile of books already waiting to be read.
Edouard Louis: The End of Eddy.Not my favourite read of the year. It barely qualifies as fiction
As a non translated book Mirror shoulder signal would I think be too lowbrow for the Costa.
At least the book has the merits of reviewing itself. “Can't you try and translate other authors?" asks Molly. "Some that mean something"
Would strongly recommend both Belladonna and Such Small Hands. very different books - one 400 pages and Sebaldian in ambition. The other a 80 page novella in the Fever Dream mould.
But the continued success of Mirror... (MBI, Impac as I recall, now this) baffles me
And the 2018 winner is Such Small Hands translated by Lisa Dillman from Andrés Barbas original.Very well deserved - the one glaring omission from the MBI and BTBA, indeed the shadow jury seriously discussed calling it in for our list.
Can we do a swap for Freshwater?
Yes although Fever Dream js an obvious comparison and I recall you weren't a huge fan
2019 shortlist:Jón Kalman Stefánsson, About the Size of the Universe, translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton (MacLehose)
Gaito Gazdanov, The Beggar and Other Stories, translated from the Russian by Bryan Karetnyk (Pushkin Press)
Dalia Grinkeviciute, Shadows on the Tundra, translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas (Peirene)
Christine Marendon, Heroines from Abroad, translated from the German by Ken Cockburn (Carcanet)
Mario Benedetti, Springtime in a Broken Mirror, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor (Penguin)
Ivo Andric, Omer Pasha Latas, translated from the Serbo-Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth (New York Review of Books)
Gine Cornelia Pedersen, Zero, translated from the Norwegian by Rosie Hedger (Nordisk Books)
Mbarek Ould Beyrouk, The Desert and the Drum, translated from the French by Rachel McGill (Dedalus)
I've only read one (Shadows on the Tundra) , although I've read 4 other Jón Kalman Stefánsson/Philip Roughton collaborations (including the 2017 winner).
The 2019 winner was Celia Hawkesworth (who also won the 2020 Best Translated Book Award for a different novel) for her translation of Ivo Andrić, Omer Pasha Latas.
The 2020 shortlist:Michális Ganás, A Greek Ballad (Yale UP), translated from the Greek by David Connolly and Joshua Barley
Pajtim Statovci, Crossing (Pushkin Press), translated from the Finnish by David Hackston
Mahir Guven, Older Brother (Europa), translated from the French by Tina Kover
Tatyana Tolstaya, Aetherial Worlds (Daunt Books), translated from the Russian by Anya Migdal
Multatuli, Max Havelaar (New York Review Books), translated from the Dutch by Ina Rilke and David McKay
Dušan Šarotar, Billiards at the Hotel Dobray (Istros Books), translated from the Slovene by Rawley Grau
Dina Salústio, The Madwoman of Serrano (Dedalus), translated from the Portuguese by Jethro Soutar
Birgit Vanderbeke, You Would Have Missed Me (Peirene Press), translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
I've read three - You Would Have Missed Me, Crossing, Billiards at the Hotel Dobray.My vote would go to the latter (although NB this is a prize for the translation, rather than a prize for the book).
I read only Tolstaya and I'm glad to see it shortlisted. I am intrigued by Šarotar's Billiards at the Hotel Dobray and will probably read it.
Vesna wrote: "I am intrigued by Šarotar's Billiards at the Hotel Dobray and will probably read it."Me too. I don't know why it's the one that stuck out most of the many I've not yet read, but it did.
I've only read two on the list, so I have a lot of unknowns here.
My review of that one: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...It is very different to Panorama from the same author/translator/publisher but both are highly worthwhile.
And the winner is David Hackston for his translation of Crossing.“David Hackston’s impeccable translation never falters in the voices he gives to the characters. He switches effortlessly from Bujar’s father’s idiom of legends and fairytales to the obsessive, runaway sentences of the protagonist’s inner reflections.”
2021 shortlist includes the incomparably brilliant 2020 International Booker winner and two from the 2021 longlist:David Diop, At Night All Blood Is Black, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis (Pushkin)
Graciliano Ramos, São Bernardo, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan (NYRB)
Andrzej Tichý, Wretchedness, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories)
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Discomfort of the Evening, translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison (Faber)
Vénus Khoury-Ghata, The Last days of Mandelstam, translated from French by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Seagull)
Ulrike Almut Sandig, I Am a Field Full of Rapeseed, Give Cover to Deer and Shine Like Thirteen Oil Paintings Laid One on Top of the Other, translated from German by Karen Leeder (Seagull)
Esther Kinsky, Grove, translated from German by Caroline Schmidt (Fitzcarraldo)
Guadalupe Nettel, Bezoar, translated from Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine (Seven Stories Press)
Is not the prize for the translation though. Which works best on that basis.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Is not the prize for the translation though. Which works best on that basis."Nichola Smalley's translation of Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý according to the judges - winner was announced yesterday
Longlist for 2022:Bernard Adams's translation of The Hangman's House by Andrea Tompa - Hungarian, Seagull Books.
Stuart Bell's translation of Bird Me by Édith Azam – French, the87 press
Jack Bevan's translation of the Complete Poems of Salvatore Quasimodo - Italian, Carcanet
Alexandra Büchler's translation of Dream of a Journey by Kateřina Rudčenková – Czech, Parthian
Jen Calleja's translation of The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer – German, Scribe
Nancy Naomi Carlson's translation of Cargo Hold of Stars by Khal Torabully – French (Mauritian), Seagull Books
Sasha Dugdale's translation of In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova – Russian, Fitzcarraldo
Daniel Hahn's translation of Occupation by Julian Fuks – Portuguese (Brazil), Charco Press
John Litell's translation of Nordic Fauna by Andrea Lundgren – Swedish, Peirene
Janet Livingstone's translation of Boat Number Five by Monika Kompaníková – Slovak, Seagull Books
Rachael McGill's translation of Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza – French/Sangho (CAR), Dedalus
Tiago Miller's translation of The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig – Catalan, Fum D’Estampa Press
Julia Sanches's translation of Permafrost by Eva Baltasar – Catalan, And Other Stories
Cristina Sandu's translation of Union of Synchronised Swimmers by Cristina Sandu – Finnish, Scribe
Damion Searls's translation of A New Name by Jon Fosse – Norwegian, Fitzcarraldo
Jeffrey Zuckerman's translation of Night As It Falls by Jakuta Alikavazovic – French, Faber
Shortlist "end of May"I've read 6/16. Great to see Song of Youth on the list though A New Name will be hard to beat
Sasha Dugdale's translation of In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova – Russian, Fitzcarraldo
Daniel Hahn's translation of Occupation by Julian Fuks – Portuguese (Brazil), Charco Press
John Litell's translation of Nordic Fauna by Andrea Lundgren – Swedish, Peirene
Tiago Miller's translation of The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig – Catalan, Fum D’Estampa Press
Julia Sanches's translation of Permafrost by Eva Baltasar – Catalan, And Other Stories
Damion Searls's translation of A New Name by Jon Fosse – Norwegian, Fitzcarraldo
Five for me - four of yours plus 'The Union of Synchronised Swimmers' :)
Does the book live up to the intriguing sounding title?Incidentally wonderful to see Nordic Fauna on the list. This was one translated by the winner of the annual prize Peirene run to support emerging translators.
Look, not a particularly memorable read, but quick and enjoyable.
Permafrost was a favourite last year, and enjoyed her follow-up since then. I set the Stepanova aside the early sections about her aunt were promising but then the long sections on family photographs were, for me, too derivative/reminiscent of better books that cover this kind of thing like Annette Kuhn's Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination and Barthes, Sontag on photography.
ShortlistStuart Bell's translation of Bird Me by Édith Azam – French, the87 press
Jen Calleja's translation of The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer – German, Scribe
Nancy Naomi Carlson's translation of Cargo Hold of Stars by Khal Torabully – French (Mauritian), Seagull Books
Sasha Dugdale's translation of In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova – Russian, Fitzcarraldo
Daniel Hahn's translation of Occupation by Julian Fuks – Portuguese (Brazil), Charco Press
Rachael McGill's translation of Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza – French/Sangho (CAR), Dedalus
Tiago Miller's translation of The Song of Youth by Montserrat Roig – Catalan, Fum D’Estampa Press
Cristina Sandu's translation of Union of Synchronised Swimmers by Cristina Sandu – Finnish, Scribe
As Paul noted in another thread, the eight books on this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize have been announced.
-Paul Vincent and John Irons for 100 Dutch-Language Poems
-John Cullen for Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation
-Stephen Pearl for Ivan Goncharov’s The Same Old Story
-Don Bartlett for Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Dancing in the Dark
-Shaun Whiteside for Charles Lewinsky’s Melnitz
-Lola M. Rogers for Sofi Oksanen’s When the Doves Disappeared
-Philip Roughton for Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s The Heart of Man
-Lisa C. Hayden for Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus
The winner, who will receive £2,000 at Oxford Translation Day on June 11.