English PEN reveals shortlist for the PEN Presents award

English PEN has revealed the shortlist for PEN Presents, an award to fund literary translators’ work. The aim is to give publishers better access to titles from underrepresented languages and regions, and help diversify the landscape of translated literature. 

The shortlist for the second round of the award includes 13 titles representing 10 languages from 13 territories. The shortlisted projects, featuring 16 translators, have been awarded grants to create 5,000-word samples, as part of PEN Present’s aim of funding the often unpaid work of sample translation.

The shortlisted works include novels, short stories and a graphic novel.

Maren Baudet-Lackner has been shortlisted for a translation from French of Osvalde Lewat’s The Aquatics (Les Escales), Madeleine Arenivar for a translation from Spanish of Yuliana Ortiz Ruano’s Carnival Fever (La Navaja Suiza Editores), James Bennett also for a translation from Spanish of Fernando Molano’s View from a Sidewalk (Seix Barral Colombia) and Ibrahim Fawzy for a translation from Arabic of Khaled Nasrallah’s The White Line of Night (Dar Al Saqi).

Meanwhile, Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian made the list with a translation from Persian of Hormoz Shahdadi’s Night of Terror, Jack Hargreaves with a translation from Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese of Chiang-sheng Kuo’s A Time No More, and Jacqueline Leung with a translation from Chinese of Hon Lai-chu’s Mending Bodies. 

Rachael McGill is in the running for a translation from French of Sani’s The Dendi Warrior, Nhkum Lu and Lucas Stewart for a translation from Kachin of the anthology Kachin: Stories from an Uncivil War, and Arthur Reiji Morris for a translation from Japanese of Lee Yongdeok’s Before You Kill Me with a Bamboo.

Finally, Yuki Tejima made the shortlist for a translation from Japanese of Hitomi Kanehara’s Unsocial Distance (Shinchōsha), Tiffany Tsao and Norman Erikson Pasaribu for a translation from Indonesian of Ziggy Zezsyazeoviennazabrizkie’s Take Care, Noisy Lane and Austin Wagner for a translation from Hungarian of Ádám Nádasdy’s The Bearded Neptune (Magvető Publishing).

This round of PEN Presents was open to proposals for translations of works in any language and from any geography, of any era, form, genre and style. The round is in partnership with Translating Women, and supported by an Open Innovation Platform grant from the University of Exeter and the Arts and Humanities Research Council project "Changing the Landscape: Diversity and Translated Fiction in the UK Publishing Industry".

The PEN Presents Selection Panel will select six samples from the shortlist to be showcased in an issue on the PEN Presents platform, an online catalogue of the most "outstanding, original, and bibliodiverse" literature not yet published in English translation. They will be given editorial support from English PEN and promoted to UK publishers.

Will Forrester, translation and international manager at English PEN, said: "It’s telling that the selection panel have chosen 13 projects for this shortlist: we received an extraordinary number of outstanding proposals, and even the most exceptional could not be contained by a round dozen awards. It’s also telling that these 13 projects come from 13 different territories, and almost as many languages: it speaks to the volume and diversity of first-rate literature not yet translated into English, and the pressing need to support the talented translators poised to convey these works across linguistic borders.

"We are excited to be able to support these translators, and to read the samples they will create – the first glimpses of what we’re sure will soon be full-length works capturing the interests of English-language publishers and readers."

Preti Taneja, co-chair of English PEN’s translation advisory group, commented: "From a great number of extremely compelling proposals, the panel have chosen 13 outstanding projects that we found most unforgettable in their formal approach, their storytelling and voice; from languages across the world. I’m particularly delighted at the range of LGBTQ+ writers of colour, and women translators and authors in our selection.

"Some of these pitches were so outstanding, I felt bereft when I finished them because I now must wait to read the books. So I look forward to the samples each translator produces, and I know it’s going to be lively as the panel undertakes the very difficult task of selecting the final six. Congratulations to the shortlist!"

PEN Presents was launched following a 2021 research collaboration between English PEN and the Translating Women project, which consulted with translators, agents, publishers and literature organisations, and found a widespread desire for an initiative supporting and showcasing sample translations.