Best Translated Book Award Winners to Be Announced at BookExpo America

So, this has been percolating for some time, but yesterday BookExpo America sent out the official press release (copied below) about how this year’s Best Translated Book Award winners will be announced on Wednesday, May 27 at 2:30 as part of BEA’s programming:

Norwalk, CT, February 25, 2015: BookExpo America (BEA), North America’s largest and preeminent book industry convention, continues to shine a light on international publishing by sponsoring the 8th Annual Best Translated Book Award which was founded to bring attention to great works of literature in translation and honor the translators who make these available to English readers. Over the past few years, underwriting from Amazon.com has made it possible for the winning authors and translators to receive $5,000 in cash prizes, making this the largest award for literature in translation in the United States. Inaugurated in 2008, the award is conferred by Three Percent, the online literary magazine of Open Letter Books, which is the book translation press of the University of Rochester.

The award will take place on the Eastside Stage at BEA on Wednesday, May 27 at 2:30pm at the Jacob K. Javits Center. BookExpo America is widely known as an ideal place for content creators, media, booksellers, rights professionals, and movie and television executives to meet new authors, discover new books, learn about trends shaping the book industry, and network with those who have a passion for books and reading. It is the nation’s largest gathering of booksellers, book publishers and book industry professionals.

“Announcing the winners of the Best Translated Book Award at BoookExpo America makes perfect sense,” notes Chad W. Post, publisher of Open Letter and Founder of the awards. “Booksellers are some of the biggest fans of international literature I know, and one of the most important groups out there for getting translations into the hands of individual readers. It’s exciting to be able to share this announcement with them directly, at one of the key bookselling events of the year. Plus, incorporating the BTBAs into the setting of BEA—with hundreds of authors, translators, and editors in attendance—is a fantastic way to show that international literature is a central, growing part of book culture.”

Any works in translation published in 2014 for the first time ever (no retranslations or reissues) are eligible for the award. More than 580 works of fiction and poetry have already met these criteria. These books originated from 73 different countries and were written in 46 different languages, making this the largest, and most diverse, pool of entries to date. Additionally, these books were published by 194 different publishers, demonstrating the large base of interest in bringing international voices to American readers.

Obviously, we’re going to party after this . . . Details on that are TK.

Couple BTBA points worth noting though:

Because of this change of venue (we used to announce the winners during PEN World Voices, and hope that next year we can announce the finalists there), we’ve altered the schedule for the 2015 announcements. (As you can see on the official BTBA site.)

The Longlists for both Fiction and Poetry will now be announced on Tuesday, April 7th;
Finalists will be announced on Tuesday, May 5th;
Winners & Celebration Party on May 27th.

Also, be sure and check out Best Translated Book for all of the amazing write-ups the judges have been posting about this year’s works. They’re doing a phenomenal job, and their columns make up the single greatest online source for information about 2014 works in translation, bar none. All of these posts go up on Three Percent as well, but over the next month, I’m going to be highlighting a bunch of them as we build up to the announcement of the two longlists . . .