November 2021 translation news roundup
As we welcome winter, don’t forget to check out our monthly roundup of November translation and publishing news, plus updates in literature and arts education you may have missed!
Prizes
November was full of award announcements. Among them, the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature (opens in a new tab)went to Aneesa Abbas Higgins’s for Winter in Sokcho, translated from French by Elisa Shua.
An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, (tr. Jackie Smith) won the 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation(opens in a new tab).
The inaugural list of Royal Society of Literature international writers(opens in a new tab) includes Don Mee Choi, Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Yan Lianke, Amin Maalouf, Alain Mabanckou, Javier Marías, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Olga Tokarczuk, and Dubravka Ugrešić, among others.
South African author Damon Golgut has been awarded the 2021 Booker Prize(opens in a new tab) for The Promise.
Senegal’s Mohamed Mbougar Sarr won the 2021 Prix Goncourt(opens in a new tab).
Martina Clavadetscher was awarded the 2021 Swiss Book Prize(opens in a new tab) for her novel The Invention of Disobedience.
News
Two Lines Press 2022 subscriptions are now on sale! Get every single book from Two Lines Press next year, plus exclusive subscribers-only goodies.
The National Book Critics Circle is launching a new prize for translated literature.(opens in a new tab)
A 1,200 year-old book’s journey from Irish bog to museum treasure(opens in a new tab).
U.S. libraries see a spike in efforts to ban books in schools(opens in a new tab).
400,000 books, including several priceless volumes, were destroyed in a fire(opens in a new tab) in a U.K. warehouse.
Where have all the translators gone?(opens in a new tab) As foreign-language streaming services explode in popularity, there’s a shortage of translators for subtitles.
TikTok’s #BookTok reading corner has earned more than 26 billion view(opens in a new tab)s and influences global sales.
Reading List
Need gift ideas for the readers in your life? Check out our 2021 Holiday Gift Guide(opens in a new tab).
Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island (tr. Christina MacSweeney) is on Southwest Review‘s list of 10 Must-Read Books of 2021(opens in a new tab).
Egyptian author Mohamed Kheir’s Slipping (tr. Robin Moger), is featured in a LitHub essay asking “How Did the Arab Spring Change Fiction?”(opens in a new tab)
“The Translator I Never Wanted to Be”(opens in a new tab): author Mariam Rahmani ponders the role of translation for Granta.
The continued stigma of speaking other languages in America, despite the lifelong benefits(opens in a new tab).
