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SoA announces shortlists for eight translation prizes worth £30,000
The Society of Authors (SoA) has announced the 41 shortlisted works vying for the eight prizes that will be awarded at the 2024 Translation Prizes ceremony, held at the British Library’s Knowledge Centre on 12th February 2025.
A prize fund of over £30,000 will be shared among the winners, celebrating translations of prose, poetry and non-fiction. Translations from 12 languages will be celebrated, including first translations from Eastern Armenian, Kazakh and Uyghur.
A winning translation from Dutch into English will be awarded the Vondel Translation Prize this year, a triennial prize last awarded in 2022. The judges described the five shortlisted translations – each with "an unforgettable first-person narrator" – as demonstrating "unflinching integrity, and above all, flair".
The biennial John Florio Prize has returned after a year out, celebrating translations from Italian. The winner will be awarded £3,000 and a runner-up will be given a prize of £1,000.
Brian Robert Moore is in the running for a translation of A Silence Shared by Lalla Romano (Pushkin Press), while Jenny McPhee is competing for the prize with a translation of Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante (New York Review Books Classics). Leah Janeczko is shortlisted for a translation of Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo (Virago) and John Cullen and Gregory Conti are on the list for their translation of The Colour Line by Igiaba Scego (HopeRoad Publishing).
Meanwhile, the winner of the Premio Valle Inclán prize for translations from Spanish into English, will also be awarded £3,000, while a runner-up will be awarded £1,000. Kit Maude is shortlisted for a translation of Cousins by Aurora Venturini (Faber), while Clayton Lehmann and Ángela Helmer are on the list for Francisco López de Gómara’s General History of the Indies (University Press of Colorado). Christina MacSweeney is shortlisted for a translation of Fury by Clyo Mendoza (Seven Stories Press UK), while Chris Andrews, Edith Grossman and Alastair Reid are in the running for Maqroll’s Prayer and Other Poems by Álvaro Mutis (New York Review Books Poets), and Chris Andrews has been shortlisted for You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi (New Directions).
The other six translation prize shortlists in full
Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for published translations from Arabic
- Kay Heikkinen for a translation of Before the Queen Falls Asleep by Huzama Habayeb (MacLehose Press)
- Sawad Hussain for a translation of Edo’s Souls by Stella Gaitano (Dedalus)
- Nada Faris for a translation of Lost in Mecca by Bothayna Al-Essa (DarArab For Publishing and Translation)
- Katharine Halls for a translation of Rotten Evidence by Ahmed Naji (McSweeney’s)
- Robin Moger for a translation of Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal (And Other Stories)
- Nadiyah Abdullatif and Anam Zafar for a translation of Yoghurt and Jam or How my Mother Became Lebanese by Lena Merhej (Balestier Press)
Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize for full-length Japanese-language works
- Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell for a translation of Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (New Directions)
- Brian Bergstrom for a translation of Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth by Kōhei Saitō (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- David Boyd for a translation of The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (Granta Publications)
- Masaya Saito for a translation of The Kobe Hotel: Memoirs by Sanki Saitō (Isobar Press)
- Alison Watts for a translation of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (Doubleday)
- Kendall Heitzman for a translation of Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino (Pushkin Press)
Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translations into English of full-length German works
- Michael Hofmann for a translation of Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir by Werner Herzog (The Bodley Head)
- Imogen Taylor for a translation of Glorious People by Sasha Salzmann (Pushkin Press)
- Michael Hofmann for a translation of Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (Granta Publications)
- Gillian Davidson for a translation of Library for the War-Wounded by Monika Helfer (Bloomsbury Publishing)
- Andrew Shanks for a translation of Revelation Freshly Erupting: Collected Poetry by Nelly Sachs (Carcanet Press)
Scott Moncrieff Prize for translations into English of full-length French works
- Natasha Lehrer for a translation of As Rich as the King by Abigail Assor (Pushkin Press)
- Mark Polizzotti for a translation of Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga (Daunt Books Publishing)
- Penny Hueston for a translation of Sleepless by Marie Darrieussecq (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Joyce Zonana for a translation of The Child and the River by Henri Bosco (New York Review Books Classics)
- Patrick McGuinness and Stephen Romer for a translation of The Day’s Ration: Selected Poems by Gilles Ortlieb (Arc Publications)
TA First Translation Prize for a debut literary translation into English
- Deanna Cachoian-Schanz and editor Tatiana Ryckman for a translation from Eastern Armenian of A Book, Untitled by Shushan Avagyan (Tilted Axis Press)
- Dias Novita Wuri and editor Marika Webb-Pullman for a translation from Indonesian of Birth Canal by Dias Novita Wuri (Scribe Publications)
- James Young and editor Stella Sabin for a translation from Portuguese of The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer (Peirene Press)
- Mirgul Kali and editor Deborah Smith for a translation from Kazakh of To Hell with Poets by Baqytgul Sarmekova (Tilted Axis Press)
- Joshua L Freeman and editors Bea Hemming and Jenny Dean for a translation from Uyghur of Waiting to be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil (Jonathan Cape)
Vondel Translation Prize for a translation into English of a full-length Dutch work
- David McKay for a translation of We Slaves of Suriname by Anton de Kom (Polity Press)
- Emma Rault for a translation of We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets (Picador)
- Kristen Gehrman for a translation of The History of My Sexuality by Tobi Lakmaker (Granta Books)
- Michele Hutchison for a translation of My Heavenly Favourite by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Faber)
- Sam Garrett for a translation of Falling is like Flying by Manon Uphoff (Pushkin Press)
