Cara Piraino Wins 2023 ‘Emerging Translator Prize’ from Comma Press & Bristol Translates
DECEMBER 15, 2023 — Comma Press have announced the winner of their 2023 Emerging Translator Prize, hosted in partnership with Bristol Translates Summer School and the University of Bristol.
This year’s focus was Arabic, and the winner wastranslator Cara Piriano.
The competition, hosted in partnership with Bristol Translates Summer School and the University of Bristol, is aimed at emerging translators. Each year, a language is selected and students who attended Bristol Translates Summer School with a focus in that language submit a short translation sample.
This year’s finalists — including runners-up Talei Lakeland and Katherine Van de Vate — will each translate a story for Comma’s forthcoming Book of Sana’a, which is set for publication late 2024.
Piriano has been a translator focused on legal translation. In a news release, she said:
I’m incredibly honored to be chosen to bring Afaf al-Qubati’s evocative portrait of Sana’a to English- language readers. As a translator just beginning my transition to the literary world, to have my name in print in a Comma Press publication will be a gratifying and valuable recognition.
The two runners-up are Talei Lakeland, who translates from Arabic, German, and French into English and Katherine Van de Vate, whose translation of Badriyah Al Badri’s novel The Last Crossing is set to appear from Dar Arab in 2024.