Typographical Era's Translation Award

In response to the incredibly lame GoodReads Choice Awards (and yes, I’m totally voting for Jodi Picoult in the fiction category), Typographical Era launched their own Translation Award:

It all started when I asked a simple question on Twitter yesterday. Why in the HELL do the GoodReads Choice Awards not have a category dedicated to allowing users to vote for their favorite literary translation of the year? There are twenty categories. TWENTY. Yet translations are completely ignored. Thus the first ever Typographical Translation Award is born. Lovers of international fiction, this is your chance to be speak up and be heard! You tell us, what was the best translation published in 2013? Here’s how it works:

I’ve started the ball rolling by officially nominating 20 titles that appeared in English translation in the United States for the first time in 2013. Some of these we’ve reviewed on the site, others we have not. While no list can ever be all encompassing, I’ve done my best to select quality works spanning a wide variety of publishers, languages, countries, and subject matter. In the interest of fairness, I’ve linked each title below directly to its publisher’s informational page and NOT, where applicable, to our review. I’ve also included an “other” field as part of the poll where you can write-in a vote for your favorite novel if it didn’t make the list. Any write-ins that are received will automatically be added to the poll so that others can vote for them as well. I reserve the right to remove a title if it doesn’t qualify as an original work that was published in 2013. Confused about what’s eligible? Three Percent’s translation database is a great resource.

Voting is limited to one per IP address. The polls will close on the evening of November 28th at which time I’ll reveal the results and the top 8 titles will move on to a final round of voting, with your overall champion being crowned on December 19th.

Below you’ll find the entire list of 20 nominated titles, but really, you should only be voting for one of these two books:

The Dark by Sergio Chejfec, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary

Tirza by Arnon Grunberg, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett

But if you insist on voting for something that wasn’t published by Open Letter, here’s the rest of the nominated titles:

All Dogs Are Blue by Rodrigo de Souza Leao, translated from the Portuguese by Zoe Perry

My Struggle: Book Two by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Cold Sea Stories by Pawel Huelle, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd Jones

Under This Terrible Sun by Carlos Busqued, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

The Whispering Muse by Sjon, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare, translated from the Albanian by John Hodgson

The President’s Hat by Antoine Laurain, translated from the French by Jane Aitken

The Infatuations by Javier Marias, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

Seiobo There Below by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet

The Elixir of Immortality by Gabi Gleichmann, translated from the Norwegian by Michael Meigs

A True Novel by Minae Mizumura, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter

Ten White Geese by Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer

The Devil’s Workshop by Jachym Topol, translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker

The Black Lake by Hella Haasse, translated from the Dutch by Ina Rilke

The Jew Car by Franz Fuhmann, translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole

Kafka’s Hat by Patrice Martin, translated from the Dutch by Chantrell Bilodeau

The Fata Morgana Books by Jonathan Littell, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell

Sandalwood Death by Mo Yan, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt

Go vote!