Attention all aspiring translators of German! In case you didn’t hear about this two years ago, when this prize was first launched, there’s a new competition to try your hands at, for nonfiction writing, organized by the German Book Office and Geisteswissenschaften International, with some hefty cash prizes up for grabs. As with the Goethe Institut’s Gutekunst Prize, all the translators entering this competition, offered every other year, will translate the same text (in this case, you’ll have your choice of two options, around 900 words each). And like the Gutekunst Prize, the GINT (which stands for Geisteswissenschaften International Nonfiction Translation Contest) is intended to encourage those who might be considering a career in translation to continue down this path (or rabbit hole, at least according to this happy rabbit).
The competition is limited to emerging translators, and all participants will be required to formally affirm that they have not published more than one book-length translation and that the work they submit for the competition is theirs alone. The winning translators will be awarded $1500 for first place, $1000 for second, $500 for third.
To participate, download the German texts for translation from the GINT website. Finished translations (American English is requested) should be submitted by email to Elizabeth Berman no later than Oct. 31, 2016 Nov. 14, 2016; only the first 200 entries to arrive will be entered into the competition. The inaugural GINT jury includes Shelley Frisch, Paula Bradish, Sarah Pybus (who was the GINT winner the first time it was offered), and Laura Leichum.
A flyer with more details has been posted online. Winners will be selected in December and announced in January 2017. Best of luck to all the aspiring nonfiction translators among us!
I just found your website and saw this link. Do you happen to know when the competition opened? How likely is it that 200 people have already submitted? Thanks!
I believe it opened in early October, so I would doubt they’re at capacity at this point; if you want to make sure, why not send a query to the email address listed for the competition above?