September 2023 translation news roundup
Our monthly roundup of translation and publishing news, plus updates in literature and arts education you may have missed!
Prizes
The U.K.-based National Centre for Writing announced the translators selected for a 2024 Emerging Translator Mentorship(opens in a new tab). This year’s nine mentees include translators working in French, Quebec French, Malay, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Italian, Swiss German, and Arabic. All awardees receive six months of mentorship and a stipend.
The National Book Award for Translated Literature longlist(opens in a new tab) was announced earlier this month and includes Astrid Roemer’s On a Woman’s Madness.
The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) reviewed 262 translated titles and 93 poetry titles to select the longlists for the 2023 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose(opens in a new tab). Longlisted titles feature work from 19 different languages and books from 19 different presses.
Seven online and print magazines were awarded the 2023 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize(opens in a new tab), which includes a $20,000 grant renewable for two years.
The 2023 JCB Prize for Literature longlist(opens in a new tab), an Indian literary award given to a book-length work of fiction in English or translation, includes four translations and three debut novels.
The shortlist for the 2023 American Library in Paris Book Award(opens in a new tab), which was created eleven years ago to recognize a book “originally published in English that best realizes new and intellectually significant ideas about France, the French people, or encounters with French culture,” was announced earlier this month.
News
We mourn the passing of celebrated Spanish translator Edith Grossman(opens in a new tab), who Gabriel García Márquez called “my voice in English”–and the first translator to sign on with a fledgling Two Lines Press 10 years ago. Editor-in-chief CJ Evans wrote a heartfelt tribute on our blog in honor of her contribution to the press.
Legendary City Lights Books bookseller Paula Yamazaki will receive the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award(opens in a new tab) for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
The Pulitzer Prize will now be open to non-citizen(opens in a new tab) US permanent residents and other writers who consider the US their “long-time primary home.”
Poet Jin Eun-young and Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo talked about giving voice through their writing to those who “strive to rise above the ruins of a collapsed life” at the 2023 Seoul International Writers’ Festival(opens in a new tab).
The private equity firm that recently bought publisher SImon & Schuster will give employees an ownership stake in the company(opens in a new tab).
Recommended Reads
Read an excerpt from Why Translation Matters(opens in a new tab), Edith Grossman’s case for the importance of literary translation.
Check out the bookies’ odds for the winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature(opens in a new tab).
Read a story from Maria Judite de Carvalho’s So Many People, Mariana (translated by Margaret Jull Costa) in The Baffler(opens in a new tab).
In Literary Hub, Jordan Stump writes about translating Marie NDiaye(opens in a new tab) on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the English translation of NDiaye’s Self-Portrait In Green.
And in the Chicago Review of Books,(opens in a new tab) authors Giada Scodellaro and Amina Cain talk about Self-Portrait in Green.
Two Lines Press is celebrating our 10th anniversary this fall! Check out our event lineup and read about The International Library(opens in a new tab), our new event series presented in partnership with the Center for Fiction and the American Library in Paris.
Erin Branagan has a lifelong interest in languages, literature, and the interrelation of countries and cultures. She speaks Spanish, French, and Japanese and has lived and traveled extensively outside the U.S.
