Twelve ‘outstanding’ translators shortlisted for inaugural PEN Presents prize

English PEN has announced its inaugural shortlist for PEN Presents, a new award launched in June aimed at supporting the production of sample translations to give publishers access to titles from under-represented languages and regions.

The shortlist represents seven of the languages of India, the focus of the first round of the prize, and includes novels, short stories and memoirs in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Nepali and Tamil.

Twelve shortlisted translators of Indian literature 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.

They are: Anurag Basnet, for a translation from Nepali of Lekhnath Chhetri’s Fruits of the Barren Tree; Deepa Bhasthi, for a translation from Kannada of Banu Mushtaq’s Haseena and Other Stories; Sayantan Dasgupta, for a translation from Bengali of Bimalendu Haldar’s Salt Country;  Fathima E V, for a translation from Malayalam of P F Mathews’ The Subaltern Spectre; and Gopika Jadeja, for a translation from Gujarati of Umesh Solanki’s Transformations.

Also shortlisted are: Kartikeya Jain, for a translation from Hindi of Chandan Pandey’s Songs of Glory;  Maithreyi Karnoor, for a translation from Kannada of Nemichandra’s Yad Vashem; Nandini Krishnan, for a translation from Tamil of Charu Nivedita’s I Am Aurangzeb: Conversations with an Emperor; and Sipra Mukherjee, for a translation from Bengali of Sasim Kumar Badoi’s The Sundarban Honey-gatherer’s Daughter.

Finally Shabnam Nadiya has been shortlisted for a translation from Bengali of Wasi Ahmed’s The Ice Machine;  Nikhil Pandhi, for a translation from Hindi of Anita Bharti’s Chronicle of the Quota Woman and Other Stories; and  V Ramaswamy, for a translation from Bengali of Adhir Biswas’ Last Boy: An Untouchable Boy’s Classroom.

Six samples will now be chosen from the shortlist by the PEN Presents selection panel – seven experts from across the UK and Indian literary sectors – 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 also be given editorial support from English PEN and promoted to UK publishers.

Will Forrester, translation and international manager at English PEN, said: “Selected from an extraordinarily large and strong set of proposals, this shortlist represents a remarkable breadth of outstanding Indian literature not yet published in English translation.

“This shortlist is a testament to the vitality of Indian literature in Indian languages, the urgent possibility of fostering their translation into English, and the talented community of literary translators who are poised to do so.”

Winners of the first round of PEN Presents will be announced at the end of October 2022. The programme will open for proposals of works in any language and from any region in January 2023.