June 2022 translation news roundup

Nancy Naomi Carlson won the 2022 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize(opens in a new tab) for her translation of Cargo Hold of Stars by Khal Torabully, from Seagull Books.

The winners of the 2021 Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation(opens in a new tab), a literary honor awarded to “outstanding translations of critical and creative works” in 24 major Indian languages, were announced this month. Shanta Gokhale was among the 22 winners of the prize for her translation of author Lakshmibai Tilak’s autobiography Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife from Marathi to English.

Ukrainian novelist Serhiy Zhadan and translators Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler were awarded the 2022 EBRD Literature Prize(opens in a new tab), for Zhadan’s novel The Orphanage. The prize is awarded to the best work of literary fiction originally written in a language from one of the nearly 40 countries where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests, and published in English translation in the UK or Europe.

London-based micropublisher Praspar Press has announced its first translation prize(opens in a new tab), an annual competition for published and unpublished translators working from Maltese into English. The winning translation will be featured in an anthology of contemporary Maltese writing, and winning and shortlisted entrants will be eligible for a translation workshop with Praspar Press editors and more literary translators. Submissions are open until July 10, 2022.

The Burning Poet initiative(opens in a new tab), a joint project of PEN Armenia, PEN Georgia, and PEN America, kicked off this month in Yerevan with a series of events exploring Georgian and Armenian literature and translation into English.

The international literary publication Words Without Borders celebrated a sweeping website redesign and relaunch (opens in a new tab)on June 4th.

Hollywood’s Echoes of Odessa: The poet Boris Dralyuk reflects on the slowly disappearing Soviet Jewish community in Los Angeles(opens in a new tab)

Though translations are gradually picking up in Punjabi literature, getting international publishers remains a tough challenge(opens in a new tab)

Choosing your reality: Advice from the golden age of Spanish literature(opens in a new tab)

What a global approach to writing teaches us — Ru Freeman on crossing borders and making connections (opens in a new tab)

The Rouge Street Blues: A new translation breathes life into China’s rustbelt (opens in a new tab)

Julia Sherwood on discovering Czech comics and on translating in tandem(opens in a new tab)

My Poison Snake: Erika Kobayashi on growing up in a household of Sherlock translators(opens in a new tab)

More than shtetl and pogrom: Inside the movement to translate Yiddish (opens in a new tab)

And don’t miss new reviews of Jazmina Barrera’s Linea Nigra in Hopscotch Translation(opens in a new tab), Literary Hub(opens in a new tab), and the Los Angeles Review of Books(opens in a new tab)!