‘New Waw, Saharan Oasis’ Makes ALTA Translation-prize Longlist for Prose
This morning, The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) announced the 12-title longlist for the 2015 National Translation Awards in Prose:
The poetry longlist, which featured Kareem James Abu-Zeid’s translation of Nothing More to Lose, by Najwan Darwish, was announced last night.
The prose longlist features two titles translated from the French, two from Spanish, two from Chinese, and one each from German, Greek, Italian, Russian, and Arabic. The Arabic title, William Hutchins’ translation of New Waw, Saharan Oasis, was published by the University of Texas at Austin. Al-Koni was also on the finalists’ list for the 2015 Man Booker International.
According to a news release, this in the only “national award for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of the source text and its relation to the finished English work.”
This year’s judges for poetry are Jason Grunebaum, Anne Magnan-Park, and Pamela Carmell.
The winners of the $5,000 award will be announced at ALTA’s annual conference, which will be held this year in Tuscon, Arizona, Oct. 28–31. Five-title shortlists will be announced the month before the conference, in September. Between now and then, ALTA promises to “highlight each book on the longlist with features written by the judges, on the ALTA blog.”
The Complete 2015 NTA Longlist in Prose:
Conversations
by Cesar Aira (Argentina)
Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver
(New Directions)
New Waw, Saharan Oasis
by Ibrahim al-Koni (Libya)
Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins
(Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin)
Street of Thieves
by Mathias Enard (France)
Translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
(Open Letter Books)
End of Days
by Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany)
Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
(New Directions)
The Woman who Borrowed Memories
by Tove Jansson (Finland)
Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella
(New York Review Books)
The Mad and the Bad
by Jean-Patrick Manchette (France)
Translated from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith
(New York Review Books)
Why I Killed My Best Friend
by Amanda Michalopoulou (Greece)
Translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich
(Open Letter Books)
This Is the Garden
by Giulio Mozzi (Italy)
Translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris
(Open Letter Books)
La Grande
by Juan Jose Saer (Argentia)
Translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph
(Open Letter Books)
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy (Russia)
Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz
(Yale University Press)
The Last Lover
by Can Xue (China)
Translated from the Chinese by Annelise F. Wasmoen
(Yale University Press)
Running Through Beijing
by Xu Zechen (China)
Translated from the Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen
(Two Lines Press)