2024 Translation Award Winners

National Book Award for Translated Literature

Publishers submitted a total of 141 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature; of the ten titles included on this year’s longlist, judges selected from works originally published in six different languages: Arabic, Danish, French, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Swedish. 

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Graywolf Press) translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

From the judges’ citation: “In Taiwan Travelogue, Yáng Shuāng-zi takes us on a metafictional voyage through the cuisines, customs, and landmarks of Taiwan under Japanese rule. A translation of a novel disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text, this is a sweeping tale of colonialism and impossible friendship. Lin King’s careful English rendering demonstrates the power of small choices to reveal the stories nested within official narratives and the palimpsest of influences that make up many formerly colonized nations.”

Read our reviews of the short-listed titles:

• Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson and translated by Saskia Vogel

• The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa and translated by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain

• Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek and translated by Leri Price

Translators' Choice Award

The 2024 Translators' Choice Award, delivered by the Publishing, Prizes, & Prestige seminar at the University of Iowa, focuses on first novels in translation published in the past year. 

The Singularity by Balsam Karam (Feminist Press, 2024) translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel

From the judges’ citation: “It was enormously important to the committee to recognize a certain representation of minority languages, small publishers and underrepresented topics. The committee emphasized their intention of selecting a work of high social value. Enthusiasm and excitement about content and the experimentation of craft were key factors in casting the deciding votes. Each jury member accentuated how critical it was to them to select a winner that they would wholeheartedly recommend.

Balsam Karam’s English-language debut The Singularity is a poignant exploration of loss, from loss of loved ones to loss of country, culture, and language. Her formally inventive prose evokes the disorienting experience of grief and exile, and is beautiful and lyrical at the same time. Translator Saskia Vogel embraces Karam’s stunning language, creating a powerfully non-conformist and poetic voice.”

The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) Awards Program

The National Translation Award (NTA) is awarded annually in poetry and in prose to literary translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality. The winners of the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose receive a $4,000 prize each.

Poetry:

And the Street by Pierre Alferi (Green Linden Press) translated from French by Cole Swensen

Prose:

The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi (And Other Stories) translated from Italian by Jamie Richards

The ALTA First Translation Prize, inaugurated in 2024, recognizes the work of emerging literary translators and their editors. This $3,000 prize ($2,000 bestowed to the translator and $1,000 to the editor) is open to all genres, and awards one debut literary translation from any other language into English published in the previous calendar year. Translators based anywhere in the world and translations published anywhere in the world are eligible.

The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro (Archipelago Books) translated from Spanish by Jennifer Shyue, edited by Sarah Gale and Emma Raddatz

The Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA) recognizes the importance of contemporary Italian prose (fiction and literary non-fiction) and promotes the translation of Italian works into English. This $5,000 prize was inaugurated in 2015 and is awarded annually to a translator of a recent work of Italian prose (fiction or literary non-fiction).

Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante (New York Review Books) translated from Italian by Jenny McPhee

Lucien Stryk (1924-2013) was an internationally acclaimed translator of Japanese and Chinese Zen poetry, renowned Zen poet himself, and former professor of English at Northern Illinois University. Stryk wrote, edited, and translated over two dozen volumes during his life. The $6,000 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, which was inaugurated in 2009, recognizes the importance of Asian translation for international literature and promotes the translation of Asian works into English.

Decapitated Poetry by Ko-hua Chen (Seagull Books) translated from Chinese by Wen-chi Li and Colin Bramwell

The Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award (SUFTA), inaugurated in 2022, is offered by the American Literary Translators Association in conjunction with the Spain-USA Foundation. This $5,000 award recognizes translations into English of literary prose works written originally by authors of Spanish (Spain) nationality. The source language of the original text may be Spanish, Catalan, Basque, or Galician.

Open Heart by Elvira Lindo (Other Press) translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West

The International Booker Prize

Awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. The prize celebrates the vital work of translators, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and the translator.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions) translated from German by Michael Hofmann

From the judges’ citation: “Erpenbeck’s novel, which was originally written in German, follows a destructive affair between a young woman and an older man in 1980s East Berlin, with the two lovers seemingly embodying East Germany’s crushed idealism. A meditation on hope and disappointment, Kairos poses complex questions about freedom, loyalty, love and power.”

Dublin Literary Award

This award has honored excellence in world literature since 1996. Presented annually, the Award is one of the most significant literature prizes in the world, worth €100,000 for a single work of fiction in original English or translated into English. If the winning book is in English translation, the author receives €75,000 and the translator, €25,000. Each year, a longlist is created of nominated books from invited public libraries in cities around the world.

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu (Deep Vellum) translated from Catalan by Sean Cotter

From the judges’ citation: “‘We can imagine (it not fully grasp) a world that has, in comparison to our own, an extra dimension.’” In some respects, this is the world of Solenoid. The city of Bucharest in which the narrator is a teacher and failed writer is a place in which what appears to be an abandoned factory contains unexpected caverns, tunnels and a gallery of enormous parasites, where an apparently ordinary, run-down house is built upon an electrical device that causes people lying in bed to float. By turns wildly inventive, philosophical, and lyrical, with passages of great beauty, Solenoid is the work of a major European writer who is still relatively little known to English-language readers. Sean Cotter’s translation of the novel sets out to change that situation, capturing the lyrical precision of the original, thereby opening up Cărtărescu’s work to an entirely new readership. ‘An anti-novel that for all intents and purposes should not exist but still does despite itself, thanks to the overpowering talents of the author and the translator.’”

The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation

Founded in 1996, the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation recognizes book-length translations of poetry from any language into English. The award confers a $3,000 prize to the translator of the winning book.

The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer by Tomas Tranströmer (Copper Canyon Press) Translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane

From the judges’ citation: “Patty Crane’s translations in The Blue House brilliantly present one of the greatest poetic voices of the past sixty years. Written in Swedish, Tomas Tranströmer’s work, full of cinematic imagery and wisdom, is deeply informed by his spirituality. We were equally impressed and touched by Tranströmer’s lyricism in both his early long poems and his wonderful later haiku sequences. His poems are innovative without overtly striving to be different or clever. Yet there is a profound historical sense encoded within them and the poet is not afraid to face hard historical facts. The homage these verses pay to the past, including historical figures, as well as to the fragility of life, transcend time and place, and are aesthetically grounded in our own time. Crane’s English translations get across all the nuances of Tranströmer’s solitary achievement. As she follows the supple rhythms and musicality of the original, and even more importantly, replicates the tone of Tranströmer’s often minimalistic, yet metaphysical verse, Crane and her translations leave us wonderstruck.”

The PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation

Given every three years to a translator whose career has demonstrated a commitment to excellence through the body of their work, nominations are solicited from PEN America Members and the winner is selected by a sub-committee of the PEN America Translation Committee. The award was initiated by funds donated by the late Bernard Malamud and by Gay Talese, and has received additional support from the family and friends of Ralph Manheim, the prolific and widely acclaimed English translator. Beginning in 2021, the award will be conferred with a $1,000 cash purse. This award will be conferred next in the 2027 Literary Awards cycle.

2024 Winner: Suzanne Jill Levine

From the committee’s citation: “Suzanne Jill Levine is an iconic figure who has devoted her life to practicing, investigating, and teaching the art of literary translation. The ascent of Latin American literature in the anglophone world since the Latin Boom and the current state of the art of translation are inseparable from her more than fifty years of work. Her translations of critical Latin American authors profoundly impacted and broadened the variety of Hispanic literature in translation with innovative works by such writers as Clarice Lispector, Cecilia Vicuña, Jorge Luis Borges, Manuel Puig, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and she has championed many gender-fluid and gay authors. A scholar, prolific translator, bilingual writer and poet, and ‘mother’ to scores of essential translators active in our field today, Levine’s brilliance, famous sense of humor, and scholarly writing have been crucial to the development of the field of Translation Studies and have left a profound mark on the North-South dialogue.

In her book, The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction, Jill, as she prefers to be called, offered new language—transcreation, closelaboration—to describe the intuitive, intimate act of translation and did much to penetrate the ‘literalist prejudice’ and unveil the dance of the translator herself.

It is fitting that Suzanne Jill Levine should receive the PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation for her long career of translation artistry and advocacy, for the important role she has played in championing authors sometimes seen as ‘marginal,’ and for her work to educate and lift up generations of translators with her ethic of creativity, invention, intimacy, and compassion. The international literary world and the vibrancy of literature in the U.S. are richer for her efforts.”