Frank Perry wins Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2017

Translator Frank Perry has won the 2017 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation from Swedish of Lina Wolff’s Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs (And Other Stories).

Perry took the £2,000 prize for his “pitch-perfect” translation of the novel, the judges said.

According to judge Patrick McGuinness: “Perry's translation is snappy and resourceful, and beautifully captures the book's winning central character with her unique voice and manner of seeing the world. It is also a pleasure to award the prize to a publisher which, along with several other small independents, has contributed greatly to the translation culture in this country recently.”

Perry said: “I'm obviously delighted for myself but even more thrilled at the recognition the prize offers Lina's marvellous novel.”

The Oxford–Weidenfeld Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance. It was founded by Lord Weidenfeld and is supported by New College, The Queen's College and St Anne's College, Oxford.

The 2017 judges were Eleni Philippou, Adriana X. Jacobs, Sian Gronlie, and Patrick McGuinness. Previous winners include Philip Roughton for Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s The Heart of Man (MacLehose Press), Paul Vincent and John Irons for 100 Dutch-Language Poems (Holland Park Press), and Susan Bernofsky for Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days (Portobello Books).

Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is Wolff’s debut novel, her second novel, The Polyglot Lovers is forthcoming from And Other Stories in 2019, in a translation by Saskia Vogel. In Sweden, The Polyglot Lovers was awarded the 2016 August Prize and the 2016 Svenska Dagbladet Literature Prize.