By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Prose and Poetry Shortlists Are Expected October 10
As the book competitions compete for coverage this autumn, we continue working to catch up with the announcements of longlists, shortlists, and wins.
Today (October 18), we look at the American Literary Translators Association‘s (ALTA) longlist of 24 titles translated into English from a total 17 languages and 21 publishers.
The winning translators in this program’s two categories—for a 10th year, both prose and poetry—are to be named on October 26 at ALTA’s 47th annual conference in Milwaukee, with an intermediary announcement of shortlists on October 10, six days before the opening of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20).
Each of the two winners is to receive US$4,000 in this competition, which was founded in 1998.
In a comment on the release of these longlists, ALTA’s Racheal Daum is quoted, saying, “With works spanning continents and centuries, this year’s longlists continue the National Translation Award’s commitment to celebrating diverse, exciting works in translation.
“ALTA is also extremely grateful to the prize juries, who considered some of the largest batches of submissions in the history of the National Translation Awards. Without their time, expertise, and tireless effort, these prizes would not be possible.”
The Impact of an Award
In line with the coverage we provide of book and publishing awards programs from many parts of the world—the United Kingdom being far and away the most prolific in terms of prizes—we have recommended to ALTA’s competition organizers that they follow the examples of the Booker Prize Foundation, the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and report at whatever interval of weeks or months is comfortable on how sales of their two winning translations have gone after the announcement of their wins.
Doing this (a) gives credence to the marketplace value of a prize program’s winners, (b) could reveal some of the energy of translated work on the market, and (c) make it clear to the publishing industry that there really is value in “the golden sticker” instead of asking the book business to take it on faith that these contests are helping to raise the visibility of various titles.
This is an era of runaway awards programs in publishing. As consumers’ eyes glaze over in bookstores filled with those golden stickers, it’s not too much to ask these programs for some evidence that their programs actually can raise the visibility of a good book.
National Translation Award in Prose 2024 Longlist
Jurors for this year’s prose entries are Philip Boehm, Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Will Forrester, Joon-Li Kim, and Poupeh Missaghi.
The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild
- By Mathias Énard
- Translated from French by Frank Wynne
- New Directions (USA), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK)
By the Rivers of Babylon
- By Antonio Lobo Antunes
- Translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
- Yale University Press
Cold Nights of Childhood
- By Tezer Özlü
- Translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely
- Transit Books
The End of August
- By Yu Miri
- Translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles
- Riverhead Books (USA), Tilted Axis Press (UK)
The Hunger of Women
- By Marosia Castaldi
- Translated from Italian by Jamie Richards
- And Other Stories
Kairos
- By Jenny Erpenbeck
- Translated from German by Michael Hoffman
- New Directions (USA), Granta Books (UK)
The Liar
- By Martin A. Hansen
- Translated from Danish by Paul Larkin
- New York Review Books
Not Even the Dead
- By Juan Gómez Bárcena
- Translated from Spanish by Katie Whittemore
- Open Letter Books
This is Not Miami
See our interview with German agent Bettina Wißmann about pitching ‘This Is Not Miami’ at Books at Berlinale
- By Fernanda Melchor
- Translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes
- New Directions (US), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK)
Traces of Enayat
See our interview with Iman Mersal here
- By Iman Mersal
- Translated from Arabic by Robin Moger
- And Other Stories (UK), Transit Books (US)
Whale
- By Cheon Myeong-kwan
- Translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim
- Archipelago Books (US), Europa Editions (UK)
The World at My Back
- By Thomas Melle
- Translated from German by Luise von Flotow
- Biblioasis
National Translation Award in Poetry 2024 Longlist
The jurors in the poetry category for 2024 are Kazim Ali, Ronnie Apter, and Mary Jo Bang.
And the Street
- By Pierre Alferi
- Translated from French by Cole Swensen
- Green Linden Press
Bathhouse and Other Tanka
- By Tatsuhiko Ishii
- Translated from Japanese by Hiroaki Sato
- New Directions
Central American Book of the Dead
- By Balam Rodrigo
- Translated from Spanish by Dan Bellm
- FlowerSong Press
Delicates
- By Wendy Guerra
- Translated from Spanish by Nancy Naomi Carlson and Esperanza Hope Snyder
- Seagull Books
The Dragonfly
- By Amelia Roselli
- Translated from Italian by Roberta Antognini and Deborah Woodard
- Entre Ríos Books
A Friend’s Kitchen
- By Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi
- Translated from Arabic by Bryar Bajalan with the poet Shook
- The Poetry Translation Centre
The Iliad
- By Homer
- Translated from Ancient Greek by Emily Wilson
- Norton & Company
Landless Boys
- By Jerzy Jarniewicz
- Translated from Polish by Piotr Florczyk
- MadHat Press
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- By Ovid
- Translated from Latin by C. Luke Soucy
- University of California Press
The Roof of the Whale Poems
- By Juan Calzadilla
- Translated from Spanish by Katherine M. Hedeen and Olivia Lott
- University of Wisconsin Press
Shining Sheep
- By Ulrike Almut Sandig
- Translated from German by Karen Leeder
- Seagull Books
Winter King
- By Ostap Slyvynsky
- Translated from Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky and Iryna Shuvalova
- Lost Horse Press
More from Publishing Perspectives on translation is here, more from us on the American Literary Translators Association is here, and on publishing and book awards is here.
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