2018 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation shortlist announced
Six titles have been shortlisted for the second annual award of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
The £1000 prize was established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to address the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership.The prize is funded by the University's Connecting Cultures Global Research Priority.
Last year the inaugural prize was awarded to Memoirs of a Polar Bear (Portobello Books, 2017), written by Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada and translated from German by Susan Bernofsky.
The 2018 competition received a total of 53 eligible entries of which 15 titles made the initial longlist. The 6 shortlisted titles are all prose texts. Four source languages are represented: Croatian, German, Korean and Polish. Three publishers dominate the shortlist with two titles apiece: Fitzcarraldo, Maclehose and Portobello.The 2018 prize is once again being judged byAmanda Hopkinson, Visiting Professor in Literary Translation, City, University of LondonBoyd Tonkin, Special Adviser, Man Booker International PrizeSusan Bassnett, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of WarwickDr Chantal Wright, the coordinator of the prize, from the University of Warwick’s Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, commented:“The judges were all on the same page when it came to the shortlist, swiftly and harmoniously reaching an agreement on which six titles should go forward. Last year’s winning translator, Susan Bernofsky, is back with German writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go Went Gone, as is one of last year’s shortlisted translators, Antonia Lloyd-Jones – a tireless champion of Polish literature and culture in the UK – with Żanna Słoniowska’s The House with the Stained-Glass Window.
"We also welcome the presence of two winners of the Man Book International Prize: translator Deborah Smith, who won the Booker in 2016, follows up Han Kang’s The Vegetarian with the Korean author’s The White Book, and this year’s Booker winner Flights, by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk and translator Jennifer Croft, finds itself on yet another shortlist."
Publishers Portobello and Fitzcarraldo, both of whom had books nominated for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, are joined on this year’s list by Maclehose. These three publishers are clearly reaping the rewards of their exemplary and ongoing efforts to promote the cause of international women’s literature in translation in the UK.”The winner will be announced on Tuesday 13 November 2018 at an evening ceremony in the Helen Martin Studio at the Warwick Arts Centre.The full list of shortlisted titles is as follows:
Belladonna by Daša Drndić, translated from Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth (Maclehose Press, 2017)
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017)
Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from German by Susan Bernofsky (Portobello Books, 2017)
River by Esther Kinsky, translated from German by Iain Galbraith (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018)
The House with the Stained-Glass Window by Żanna Słoniowska, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Maclehose Press, 2017)
The White Book by Han Kang, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith (Portobello Books, 2017)
