We are thrilled to announce that Mary Ann Newman has been awarded the 2017 North American Catalan Society Prize for her translation of Josep M. de Sagarra’s Private Life! In their citation, the judges write that “Newman’s fluid and elegant translation renders with equal precision the narrative’s everyday diction, its lyrical descriptions, and its corrosive yet compassionate social critique,” and call her work “extraordinary.”
To learn more about the NACS Prize, click here.
Abdellatif Laâbi’s In Praise of Defeat, translated from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith, has been shortlisted for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize! The judges call this volume of Laâbi’s work “a landmark,” commending him as “one of the major poets of our time, one who has lived through great and catastrophic events and responded to them with a passionate intelligent humanity” and singling out the “epic labour of love” that is Donald Nicholson-Smith’s translation.
To learn more about the Griffin Poetry Prize, and for a full list of shortlisted titles, click here.
Scholastique Mukasonga’s Cockroaches, translated from the French by Jordan Stump, has been chosen as a finalist for the 2017 French-American Translation Prize, nonfiction category! This award recognizes exceptional English translations of French works of fiction and nonfiction. For more information on the prize and the other finalists, click here.
Ivan Vladislavić discusses the inspirations for The Exploded View, from Johannesburg’s changing urban landscape, to the work of Joachim Schonfeldt, to the exact ingredients of “afritude sauce” in this week’s Publishers Weekly. Read it here.
The Exploded View will be published March 28, 2017. For more information, click here.
Breyte Breytenbach, a South African poet, writer and artist who opposed apartheid and was a political prisoner for many years, has been awarded the 2017 Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award. The Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award is a global literary honor, largely in the field of poetry, granted annually for outstanding artistic and intellectual achievements linked to the ideas that prevailed throughout the output of Polish writer, poet and moralist Zbigniew Herbert.
The judges, a panel consisting of international poets, writers and essayists, stressed that Breytenbach’s oeuvre recalls Herbert’s words: “Let the anger of the powerless be like the sea / whenever you hear the voice of the humiliated and beaten.”
Breytenbach accepted the award, saying, “I am profoundly humbled by this recognition and accept it with the knowledge that it carries the name of a brave and wise poet and essayist. I hope I can live up to the example he gave us, particularly in this very dark season of anger and disarray. I am proud to be among those who believe that there is, in each of us, a part of humanity and a strive for values worth fighting for – in the example of and inspired by Herbert.”
To read more about the Zbigniew Herbert International Award and Breyten Breytenbach, click here.
