A bunch of PEN Literary Award shortlists were announced on June 18 (you can see the whole list here), but I want to highlight the PEN Translation Prize Shortlist, “for a book-length translation of prose into English published in 2013. Here are the five finalists (links are to my reviews):
- An Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman, translated from the Russian by Elizabeth & Robert Chandler (review here)
- Transit, by Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo (review here)
- The African Shore, by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated from the Spanish by Jeffrey Gray (review here)
- The Emperor’s Tomb, by Joseph Roth, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
- Autobiography of a Corpse, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov (review here)
Three titles from NYRB Classics — impressive! I heartily recommend the four I’ve read, and I’m anxious to get to the one I haven’t, Joseph Roth’s The Emperor’s Tomb. New Directions is also releasing Richard Panchyk’s translation of Joseph Roth’s The Hundred Days on October 1. This is a great list of translations, so dig in.
The winner will be announced on July 30.
Thanks for bringing us this news, I am pleased that I have An Armenian Sketchbook on my TBR, now all I need is time to read it.
Correction: New Directions is releasing my translation of The Hundred Days in October. Michael Hofmann was not involved.
My sincere apologies — I’ve corrected the post!
And I look forward to your translation :-) .
Quick one – you’ve called Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s book “The African Tomb” in your post not “The African Shore”. Nice list, I haven’t had time to get to all of them but may do so, thanks for bringing the list to our attention.
Sheesh! Thanks for the catches!