Lit List: Awards Where You Can Submit Your Translation
In response to requests, a brief list of translation prizes where translators and publishers can submit their work. Please add more in the comments or email us at info@arablit.org.
Specifically for Arabic literature
First granted in 2006, The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation looks at both the book and its translation, with an emphasis on the translation. Book must have been published in Arabic after ‘67.
Sheikh Zayed Book Award (opened June 1; submit here).
The Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (nominations are open until the end of July).
General prizes
PEN Translation Prize (opened June 1 for 2024 awards cycle).
The National Translation Award (submissions are accepted beginning in January each year).
The National Book Foundation Prize for Translated Literature (published in the US, living author).
The Governor General Literary Prize in Translation (deadline for nominations July 31, 2023; to be eligible, translator must be Canadian and author must be Canadian citizen or resident, and the publisher “must have established a marketplace presence through distribution in Canadian bookstores.”)
No requirement for the author to be alive
The National Book Critics Circle award doesn’t require the author to be alive.
The PROSE awards don’t either.
For young people’s literature
The Batchelder Award; deadline for submitting is December 31, 2023.
Global Literature in Libraries Translated YA Prize (for Young Adult literature).
From select countries
The EBRD Literature Prize is for select Arab countries where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development operates; must be published by a UK publisher.
Palestine Book Awards (for Palestinian literature).
Other prizes with a particular focus
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation (for books by women; UK publishers only).
TA First Translation Prize (for a translator’s debut; UK publishers only).
The Griffin Poetry Prize (Canadian; read the rules here).
Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry (for poets who are “not US citizens”).
The Sarah Maguire Prize celebrates “the best book of poetry from a living poet from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East in English translation, published anywhere in the world.”
For unpublished works, translators and author-translators only
The ArabLit Story Prize (a short story prize, open now).
Bait AlGhasham DarArab Translation Prize (a prize for a partial manuscript; winners will be published by Dar Arab).