2015 Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize Announced

The Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize is awarded biennially by the Poetry Society in the UK for a book-length work translated from a European language and honors the Romanian translator Corneliu M Popescu, who was killed tragically young in an earthquake in 1977. Like many UK-based prizes, the Popescu Prize is open to applications from U.S.-based translators if the work in question was published in the UK or Ireland; and U.S. publishers can apply if the translator is from the UK or Irish. The judges for this year’s competition are Olivia McCannon and Clare Pollard.

I didn’t see the announcement when the shortlist came out back in October, so here’s a list of finalists for the prize:

David Constantine and Tom Kuhn for Love Poems by Bertolt Brecht, pub. by Liveright (from German)
Iain Galbraith for Self-Portrait With A Swarm Of Bees by Jan Wagner, pub. by Arc Publications (from German)
Anne Stokes for Ice Roses – Selected Poems by Sarah Kirsch, pub. by Carcanet (from German)
Ellen Doré Watson for The Mystical Rose by Adélia Prado, pub. by Bloodaxe (from Portuguese)
Susan Wicks for Talking Vrous by Valérie Rouzeau, pub. by Arc Publications (from French)
Elzbieta Wojcik-Leese for Nothing More by Krystyna Miłobędzka pub. by Arc Publications (from Polish)

And this year’s winner – insert drumroll – is Iain Galbraith for his translation of Jan Wagner. Big congratulations!

Past winners of the Popescu Prize include Alice Oswald (2013), Judith Wilkinson (2011), and Randall Couch (2009). For more years and information, please visit the Poetry Society website.

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