The 2009 FAF Translation Prize Winners . . .

Last night the French-American Foundation and Gould Foundation held their annual translation prize ceremony, honoring Jody Gladding & Elizabeth Deshays in the fiction category for their translation of Small Lives by Pierre Michon (Archipelago) and Matthew Cobb & Malcolm Debevoise in nonfiction for their translation of Life Explained by Michel Morange (Yale University Press)

As Thomas Bishop pointed out in his opening remarks, it’s interesting that both winners were translated by a pair of translators. Not that this is necessarily good or bad, just interesting. He also gave a shout out to American university presses as one of the admirable publishing segments of the book business trying to do a lot of literature in translation.

Of the finalists for the nonfiction category, four of the five titles were published by university presses (the exception being Camus’s Notebooks that came out from Ivan R. Dee). The fiction category had a different make-up, but three of the six finalists were from independent presses (Archipelago, Europa Editions, and New York Review Books).

The event—which took place at the Century Association—was very well attended (standing room only!), filled with all the editors, agents, translators, and other cultural peoples involved in international lit. (Especially French literature. One of the cool things the FAF did, which I’ve never seen before, is hand out a printed list of all RSVPs, so attendees could see who else was supposedly there and seek them out . . . Actually sort of helpful for a reception of this sort, where you’re only one or two connections away from everyone else . . .