Last week, the Instytut Ksiazki announced that this year’s Transatlantyk Award was to Vlasta Dvořáčková, who translates Polish literature into Czech.

Vlasta Dvořáčková is the most important Czech translator of Czesław Miłosz, Tadeusz Różewicz, Wisława Szymborska, and Zbigniew Herbert. Ever since having studied Polish Literature at Charles University in Prague – in the complex circumstances of a communist state and widespread censorship – she has promoted Polish literature and culture, including authors that were blacklisted. She has performed an invaluable service in her publishing and popularizing of modern Polish poetry, both before and after 1989. Her contribution to the popularization of the classics of Polish literature is also inestimable, as her translations include Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Adam Mickiewicz. Dvořáčková has won the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland. In 2009 she received the translation of the year award from the Czech Translators’ Association for her rendering of recent volumes by Wisława Szymborska (Moment, Colon, and Here). She also translates from German and English.

The Transatlantyk is an annual Book Institute award presented for outstanding achievement in the promotion of Polish literature in the world. The Award Chapter selects the winner; it is made up of Ireneusz Kania, Xenia Staroshyelska, Beata Stasińska and Olga Tokarczuk. The head is the Director of the Book Institute. The award includes 10,000 euro and a statue. The winners to date have been: Henryk Bereska (2005), Anders Bodegård (2006), Albrecht Lempp (2007), Xenia Staroshyelska (2008), Biserka Rajčić (2009), and Pietro Marchesani (2010).

The Shortlist for the 2011 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced on Monday and is a really interesting group of six titles:

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky from the German

Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras, translated by Frank Wynne from the Spanish

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely from the Turkish

I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson, translated by Charlotte Barslund with Per Petterson from the Norwegian

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, translated by Edith Grossman from the Spanish

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka, translated by Margaret Jull Costa from the Spanish

For glaringly obvious reasons, the IFFP is one of my favorite annual awards, and is one of the inspirations for the Best Translated Book Award. It’s always interesting to see the convergences (and divergences) of the two awards . . .

This year there’s quite a bit of overlap: Visitation and I Cures the River of Time were on the 2011 BTBA longlist (and Visitation on the shortlist), and The Museum of Innocence was on the 2010 longlist. Kamchatka is just coming out in the States (more on Figueras later in relation to the PEN World Voices event in Rochester), and The Sickness doesn’t seem to have a U.S. publisher. (Although it must . . . Anyone have any info?)

It’s impossible guessing a winner, but I think the Erpenbeck has a great chance . . . Anyway, all six are worth checking out, and the winner will be announced on May 26th.

Just received this reminder from Emma Archer:

The Florence Gould Foundation and the French-American Foundation are currently accepting submissions for their Annual Translation Prizes.

DEADLINE: DECEMBER 31, 2009

This year the foundation will present a $10 000 cash award for the best English translation of French in both fiction and non-fiction.

Translations for consideration must have been published for the first time in the United States between January 1 and December 31, 2009 and must be submitted, accompanied by the French original work by December 31, 2009 (one French copy and one English copy).

All categories of work are eligible in fiction and nonfiction, with the exception of technical, scientific and reference works, and children’s literature. The prizes will be announced and presented in the spring of 2010.

All submissions should be sent to:

The French-American Foundation
Translation Prizes
28 West 44th Street, Suite 1420
New York, New York 10036

Each submission must be sent with the corresponding submission form.This form should include required contact information for both French and American publishers (editorial and publicity departments) and for the translator.

Submissions will not be considered without duly filled submission form.

For inquiries, please contact earcher [at] frenchamerican [dot] org.

I’d totally stealing this post from Paper Republic. If it weren’t for PR, I think these dates would’ve passed without my noticing. (Isn’t it still the middle of December?)

• NEA Translation Fellowship applications are due on January 9th. All instructions and application info can be found here. The grants are for $12,500 or $25,000, so I encourage all eligible to apply, but you should get started asap—the online process for applying can be time consuming, especially the part about signing up at Grants.gov.

• PEN Translation Fund applications are due on January 16th. The application process is pretty straightforward, and you can either download the form from the PEN website, or by clicking here.

I’m not exactly sure when this was announced, but the list of the recipients of the FY 2008 NEA Literature Fellowships for Translations is now available online.

The NEA seems to do a consistently great job of supporting interesting projects from worthy translators, and this year is no exception. Among this year’s winners are:

• Aditya Behl’s translation from Hindavi (medieval Hindi) of the Mirigavati by Qutban;

• Susan Bernofsky’s translation from German of Robert Walser’s The Tanners;

• Philip Boehm’s translation from German of Cristoph Hein’s Gaining Ground;

• Pam Carmell’s translation from Spanish of Jose Lezama Lima’s Oppiano Licario;

• Bill Martin for his translation from Polish of a fascinating sounding book by Karol Irzykowski;

• Paul Olchvary’s translation from Hungarian of Ferenc Barnas’s The Parasite; and

• Katherine Silver’s translation from Spanish of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Senselessness.

Fourteen translators received awards this year in the amount of $10,000 or $20,000. And the link above not only lists all the recipients, but has descriptions of their projects as well . . .

I’ve heard from very reliable sources that the NEA doesn’t receive very many applications for this grant. Which absolutely boggles my mind. Aside from a few special prizes, there is no other grant that American translators can apply for where they can receive more than $10,000 for their work.

Seriously, the next deadline is January 7, 2008, and the application info can be found here.