‘Antarah’s ‘War Songs’ Makes NTA Longlist

The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) today announced the 2019 longlists for the National Translation Awards (NTA) in Poetry and Prose:

It’s delightful to see ‘Antarah ibn Shaddad’s War Songs — translated by James E. Montgomery with Richard Sieburth — and yet more delightful to imagine what Antarah would have thought of this development.

This is the second Library of Arabic Literature title to make an NTA longlist; in 2016, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s 1855 prose work Leg over Leg, made the longlist in Humphrey Davies’ translation.

There are 12 titles on the poetry longlist, which was selected by judges Anna Deeny Morales, Cole Heinowitz, and Sholeh Wolpe.

The winning translators will receive a $2,500 cash prize each. The shortlists will be announced at the end of September, while the winners will be announced at ALTA’s annual conference, set to be held this year in Rochester, NY, from November 7-10, 2019. In the meantime, ALTA will highlight each book on the longlists with features written by the judges on the ALTA blog.

No works translated from Arabic made this year’s prose list.

For more on the NTA longlists, visit the ALTA website. 

For more on Montgomery translation of War Songs, with Sieburth:

James Montgomery on Listening to the ‘Antarah in His Bones

James Montgomery on When ‘All Poets Were Warriors’

Reading ‘Antarah in the 21st Century

ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād’s ‘War Songs’: ‘Tenderness Beneath the Violence’

More ‘Antarah:

The Arabic ‘Antarah’ Comic: ‘An Experiment Worthy of Praise’