PEN Translation Prize

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The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been presented annually by PEN America and the Book of the Month Club since 1963. It was the first award in the United States expressly for literary translators. [1] A 1999 New York Times article called it "the Academy Award of Translation" and that the award is thus usually not given to younger translators. [2]

Contents

The distinction comes with a cash prize of USD $3,000. Any book-length English translation published in the United States during the year in question is eligible, irrespective of the residence or nationality of either the translator or the original author. [3]

The award is separate from the similar PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.

The PEN Translation Prize was called one of "the most prominent translation awards." [4] The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN affiliates in over 145 PEN centres around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the "major" American literary prizes. [5]

Winners

PEN Translation Prize winners [6]
YearTranslatorAuthorTitleLanguageRef.
1963 Archibald Colquhoun Federico de Roberto The ViceroysItalian
1964 Ralph Manheim Günter Grass The Tin Drum German
1965 Joseph Barnes Konstantin Paustovsky The Story of a LifeRussian
1966 Geoffrey Skelton and Adrian Mitchell Peter Weiss Marat/Sade German
1967 Harriet de Onis João Guimarães Rosa Sagarana Portuguese
1968 Vladimir Markov and Merrill Sparks (eds.)Modern Russian PoetryRussian
1969 W. S. Merwin Selected Translations 1948-1968Various [7] [8]
1970 Sidney Alexander Francesco Guicciardini The History of ItalyItalian
1971 Max Hayward Nadezhda Mandelstam Hope Against HopeRussian
1972 Richard Winston and Clara Winston Letters of Thomas MannGerman
1973 J. P. McCullough The Poems of Sextus PropertiusLatin
1974 Hardie St. Martin and Leonard Mades José Donoso The Obscene Bird of Night Spanish
1975 Helen R. Lane Juan Goytisolo Count Julian Spanish
1976 Richard Howard E. M. Cioran A Short History of Decay French
1977 Gregory Rabassa Gabriel García Márquez The Autumn of the Patriarch Spanish
1979 Adrienne Foulke Leonardo Sciascia One Way or AnotherItalian
1979 Charles Wright Eugenio Montale The Storm and Other PoemsItalian
1980 Charles Simic Vasko Popa Homage to the Lame WolfSerbian
1981 John E. Woods Arno Schmidt Evening Edged in GoldGerman
1982 Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese PoetryJapanese
1983 Richard Wilbur Molière Four Comedies: The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, The Learned Ladies, The School for Wives French
1984 William Weaver Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose Italian
1985 (prose) Helen R. Lane Mario Vargas Llosa The War of the End of the World Spanish
1985 (verse) Seamus Heaney Sweeney Astray Irish
1986 (prose) Barbara Bray Marguerite Duras The Lover French
1986 (verse)Dennis Tedlock Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life Quiché
1987 John E. Woods Patrick Süskind Perfume: The Story of a Murderer German
1988 Madeline Levine and Francine Prose Ida Fink A Scrap of Time Polish [9]
1989 Matthew Ward Albert Camus The Stranger French
1990 William Weaver Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum Italian
1991 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov Russian
1992 David Rosenberg A Poet's Bible Hebrew
1993 Thomas Hoisington Ignacy Krasicki The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom Polish
1994 Bill Zavatsky and Zack Rogow André Breton EarthlightFrench
1995 Burton Watson Selected Poems of Su Tung-p'oChinese
1996 Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh Wisława Szymborska View With a Grain of SandPolish
1997 Arnold Pomerans The Letters of Vincent van Gogh Dutch
1998 Peter Constantine Thomas Mann Six Early StoriesGerman
1999 Michael Hofmann Joseph Roth The Tale of the 1002nd NightGerman [10]
2000 Richard Sieburth Gérard de Nerval Selected WritingsFrench
2001 Tiina Nunnally Sigrid Undset The CrossNorwegian [11]
2002 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina Russian
2003 R. W. Flint Cesare Pavese The Moon and the Bonfires Italian
2004 Margaret Sayers Peden Antonio Muñoz Molina SepharadSpanish
2005 Tim Wilkinson Imre Kertész Fatelessness Hungarian
2006 Philip Gabriel Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore Japanese
2007 Sandra Smith Irène Némirovsky Suite Française French
2008 Margaret Jull Costa Eça de Queirós The Maias Portuguese [12]
2009 Natasha Wimmer Roberto Bolaño 2666 Spanish [13]
2010 Michael Henry Heim Hugo Claus WonderDutch [14] [15]
2011 Ibrahim Muhawi Mahmoud Darwish Journal of an Ordinary GriefArabic [16]
2012 Bill Johnston Wiesław Myśliwski Stone Upon StonePolish [17]
2013 Donald O. White Albert Vigoleis Thelen The Island of Second SightGerman [18] [19] [20]
2014 Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Autobiography of a CorpseRussian [21] [22] [23]
2015 Denise Newman Naja Marie Aidt BaboonDanish [24] [25] [26]
2016 Katrina Dodson Clarice Lispector The Complete StoriesPortuguese [27] [28] [29] [30]
2017 Tess Lewis Maja Haderlap Angel of Oblivion German [31] [32]
2018 Len Rix Magda Szabó Katalin StreetHungarian [33] [34] [35] [36]
2019 Martin Aitken Hanne Ørstavik LoveNorwegian [37] [38]
2020 Allison Markin Powell Hiromi Kawakami The Ten Loves of NishinoJapanese [39] [40]
2021 Emma Ramadan Abdellah Taïa A Country for DyingFrench [41] [42] [43] [44]
2022 Julia Sanches Mariana Oliver Migratory BirdsSpanish [45] [46]
2023 Tiffany Tsao Budi Darma People from BloomingtonIndonesian [47]

See also

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