The Prix Laure Bataillon is a French literary award established in 1986 by the cities of Nantes and Saint-Nazaire to be given for the best work of fiction translated each year. [1] It is awarded jointly to a foreign writer and their French language translator. [2] [3] [4]
Created in 1986 to recognise the "best work of fiction translated into French each year," the award was renamed for the Hispanic translator and literary critic, Laure Guille-Bataillon, translator of Julio Cortázar and a 1988 laureate of the prize, following her death in 1990. [5] The International Writers and Translators Residence at Saint Nazaire has been the administrator of the prize since 1993. In 2003, another prize, the Laure-Bataillon Classic Prize (Prix Laure Bataillon Classique) — given to the translator of a deceased author or a classic work of literature — was introduced and has been awarded alongside the original Laure-Bataillon Prize since 2004. [6] In 2017, the Prix Classique was renamed the Prix Bernard Hoepffner.
The past winners of the Prix Laure-Bataillon include Nobel Prize laureates, Derek Walcott, Mo Yan, and Olga Tokarczuk. [7]
| Year | Author | Title | Original Language | Translator | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Hugo Claus | Le Chagrin des Belges | Dutch | Alain Van Crugten | Julliard |
| 1987 | Giorgio Manganelli | Amour | Italian | Jean-Baptiste Para | Denoël |
| 1988 | Juan José Saer | L'Ancêtre | Spanish | Laure Bataillon | Flammarion |
| 1989 | Hartmut Lange | Le Récital suivi de La Sonate Waldstein | German | Bernard Kreiss | Fayard |
| 1990 | Bohumil Hrabal | Vends maison où je ne veux plus vivre | Czech | Claudia Ancelot | Laffont |
| 1991 | Bo Carpelan | Axel | Swedish | C.G. Bjurström et Lucie Albertini | Gallimard |
| 1992 | Josef Hiršal | Bohème, bohème | Czech | Erika Abrams | Albin Michel |
| 1993 | Gert Jonke | L'École du virtuose | German | Uta Müller et Denis Denjean | Verdier |
| 1994 | John Updike | Rabbit en paix | English | Maurice Rambaud | Gallimard |
| 1995 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger | Requiem pour une femme romantique | German | Georges Arès | Gallimard |
| 1996 | Giuseppe Longo | L'Acrobate | Italian | Jean Pastureau et Marie-Noëlle Pastureau | Éditions L'Arpenteur |
| 1997 | Bernhard Schlink | Le Liseur | German | Bernard Lortholary | Gallimard |
| 1998 | Sergio Ramírez | Le Bal des masques | Spanish | Claude Fell | Éditions Rivages |
| 1999 | W.G. Sebald | Les Émigrants | German | Patrick Charbonneau | Actes Sud |
| 2000 | Mo Yan | The Republic of Wine | Chinese | Noël Dutrait et Liliane Dutrait | Seuil |
| 2001 | Erri De Luca | Trois chevaux | Italian | Danièle Valin | Gallimard |
| 2002 | Derek Walcott | Une autre vie | English | Claire Malroux | Gallimard |
| 2004 | Vanghélis Hadziyannidis | Le Miel des anges | Modern Greek | Michel Volkovitch | Albin Michel |
| 2005 | Gamal Ghitany | Le Livre des illuminations | Arabic | Khaled Osman | Seuil |
| 2006 | Russell Banks | The Darling | English | Pierre Furlan | Actes Sud |
| 2007 | Cynthia Ozick | Les Papiers de Puttermesser | English | Agnès Desarthe | L'Olivier |
| 2008 | Vassili Golovanov | Éloges des voyages insensés | Russian | Hélène Châtelain | Verdier |
| 2009 | Duong Thu Huong | Au zénith | Vietnamese | Phuong Dang Tran | Sabine Wespieser |
| 2010 | Julián Ríos | Le Pont de l'Alma | Spanish | Geneviève Duchêne et Albert Bensoussan | Tristram |
| 2011 | Reinhard Jirgl | Renégat, roman du temps nerveux | German | Martine Remon | Quidam |
| 2012 | Peter Esterhazy | Pas question d'art | Hungarian | Agnès Jarfas | Gallimard |
| 2013 | Chrístos Chryssópoulos | Une lampe entre les dents, chronique athénienne | Modern Greek | Anne-Laure Brisac | Actes Sud |
| 2014 | Nii Ayikwei Parkes | Notre quelque part | English | Sika Fakambi | Zulma |
| 2015 | Rick Bass | Toute la terre qui nous possède | English | Aurélie Tronchet | Bourgois |
| 2016 | Gabriel Josipovici | Infini : L'histoire d'un moment | English | Bernard Hœpffner | Quidam |
| 2017 | José Carlos Llop | Solstice | Spanish | Edmond Raillard | Jacqueline Chambon |
| 2018 | Alan Moore | Jerusalem | English | Christophe Claro | Inculte |
| 2019 | Olga Tokarczuk | Les livres de Jacob | Polish | Maryla Laurent | Noir sur blanc |
| 2021 | Gonçalo M. Tavares | Le quartier, les messieurs | Portuguese | Dominique Nédellec | Viviane Hamy |
| 2021 | Miquel de Palol | Le testament d’Alceste | Catalan | François-Michel Durazzo | Zulma |
| 2022 | Josef Winkler | L’ukrainienne | German | Bernard Banoun | Verdier |
| 2023 | Laszlo Krasznahorkai | Baron Wenckheim est de retour | Hungarian | Joëlle Dufeuilly | Cambourakis |
| 2024 | Isabela Figueiredo | La grosse | Portuguese | João Viegas | Chandeigne |