Translation News Roundup

PRIZES

The 2017 Best Translated Books Award winners(opens in a new tab) are Lúcio Cardoso’s Chronicle of the Murdered House, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, and Alejandra Pizarnik’s Extracting the Stone of Madness, translated from Spanish by Yvette Siegert.

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature(opens in a new tab), with a $100,000 award, has gone to author and translator Idra Novey for her novel Ways to Disappear, which is about a translator.

The 2017 Man Booker International Prize won’t be announced until the end of the month. In the meantime the shortlist(opens in a new tab) features six incredible works in translation.

OPINIONS

Haruki Murakami gives a speech on the importance of translation(opens in a new tab).

Translator and publisher Deborah Smith on why readers are embracing translated literature(opens in a new tab).

Dennis Johnson of Melville House Books on holding the publishing industry’s feet to the fire(opens in a new tab).

READING LIST

Check out the May issue of Words Without Borders(opens in a new tab).

The latest issue of Latin American Literature Today(opens in a new tab) features work by Yuri Herrera and a dossier on “Voices from Cuba.”

A great review(opens in a new tab) of a new book on contemporary writing from Venezuela.

A new translation(opens in a new tab) by Two Lines Press translator Christina MacSweeney. (Her translation of Elvira Navarro’s A Working Woman is forthcoming later this year!)

EVENTS

The PEN World Voices Festival(opens in a new tab) is this week in NYC and some amazing authors and translators are there!

This Thursday, May 11, Scott Esposito will be in conversation with Mongolian translator Simon Wickhamsmith as part of our Two Voices Salon series. Prepare for the discussion by reading Wickhamsmith’s essay about Mongolia’s publishing scene and the difficulty of finding manuscripts.

We’re celebrating the launch of Atlantic Hotel on May 18 at the iconic City Lights Books! Adam Morris will be there to discuss the translation process and author João Gilberto Noll‘s legacy.

The 2017 Bay Area Book Festival is taking over downtown Berkeley early next month. We’ll be there along with a ton of really great presses, authors, and translators.