You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
PEN Translates 2025: Yuliana Ortiz Ruano among diverse line-up of winners
English PEN has announced the PEN Translates awards winners for 2025, including the first-ever PEN Translates award for a title from Somaliland. English PEN’s flagship grant programme PEN Translates has awarded 19 titles from 17 publishers across 13 languages and 17 regions.
The works awarded span poetry, science fiction, non-fiction reportage, and mixed-genre collection, with themes ranging from environmentalism to migration. Among this round’s winners is Carnival Fever by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (Ecuador), translated from the Spanish by Madeleine Arenivar (Tilted Axis Press), which was previously supported by the PEN Presents programme for sample translations.
This year also marked the inaugural PEN Translates x SALT round, which included two titles translated from Hindi and Tamil: Our City, That Year by Geetanjali Shree (India), translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell (Tilted Axis Press) and Songs in a Time of Confinement by Mohamed Rashmy Ahamed (Sri Lanka), translated from Tamil by Nedra Rodrigo (trace press). The new SALT strand is open to works of South Asian literature in English translation published anywhere outside the region.
PEN Translates has now awarded more than £1.2m in grants and supported more than 390 books translated from over 90 languages.
Nichola Smalley, English PEN Translation Advisory co-chair and chair of the PEN Translates Selection Panel, said: "We’re thrilled to see such a diversity of voices coming through the PEN Translates project, with strong applications and innovative thinking from so many publishers, big and small. The awarded titles are evidence of the continued vitality of the translation sector, and it was a privilege to be party to the considered and in-depth deliberations of the selection panel."
Continues...
Read More
Preti Taneja, co-chair of the English PEN Translation Advisory Group and chair of the PEN Translates x SALT Selection Panel, said: "We are delighted to support two such different but equally vital projects – vital in the sense of their contribution to literature in translation and to bibliodiversity, and in the perfect match of project with publisher. Anglophone readers will be enriched and inspired by these works for generations to come."
Nadia Saeed, translation and international manager at English PEN, said: "These 19 titles show the continued resilience of literature in translation amid international and sectorial shifts. The standard of this round is testament to the commitment of publishers – particularly of independent presses – to bringing works into translation that challenge and engage readers across linguistic borders. From graphic novels to non-fiction reportage, from themes such as the environmental crisis to the legacy of conflict, we’re delighted to be supporting such a fantastic range of titles."
PEN Translates award winners
Hell of Solitude: Selected Writings by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Japan), translated from the Japanese by Ryan Choi (Prototype Publishing).
False War by Carlos Manuel Álvarez (USA), translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
Small Boats by Vincent Delecroix (France), translated from the French by Helen Stevenson (HopeRoad/SmallAxes).
Blue Moon by Damir Karakaš (Croatia), translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursać (Selkies House).
The Palace on the Higher Hill by Karim Kattan (France), translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Foundry Editions).
Wild Boar by Hannah Lutz (Denmark), translated from the Swedish by Andy Turner (The Emma Press).
Terricide by Moira Millán (Argentina), translated from the Spanish by Marcela Lopez Levy and Ines Gallegos Santinoli (Latin America Bureau).
Conversations with an Executioner by Kazimierz Moczarski (Poland), translated from the Polish by Sean Gasper Bye (Duckworth Books).
Species of the Chthulucene by Maria Ptqk (Spain), translated from the Spanish by Nicolas Salazar Sutil (Lawrence Wishart).
Carnival Fever by Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (Ecuador), translated from the Spanish by Madeleine Arenivar (Tilted Axis Press).
Forty-Kilometre Night by Lutz Seiler (Germany), translated from the German by Ken Babstock and Stefan Tobler (And Other Stories).
My Secret Life: Selected Poems by Krisztina Tóth (Hungary), translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes (Bloodaxe Books).
Anima Fatua by Anna Lidia Vega Serova (Cuba), translated from the Spanish by Robin Munby (Amaurea Press).
Walking with the Dead by Micheliny Verunschk (Brazil), translated from the Portuguese by Sophie Lewis (Dead Ink Books).
A Message by Weedhsame (Somaliland), translated from the Somali by Martin Orwin (Poetry Translation Centre).
Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui (Japan) translated from the Japanese by Helen O’Horan (Gollancz).
Selected Poems (1966–2017) by Dan Ying (Singapore), translated from the Chinese by Christina Ng (Poetry Translation Centre).
PEN Translates x SALT
Songs in a Time of Confinement by Mohamed Rashmy Ahamed (Sri Lanka), translated from Tamil by Nedra Rodrigo (trace press).
Our City, That Year by Geetanjali Shree (India), translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell (Tilted Axis Press).
