For the past decade, the French Cultural Services of the French embassy has been presenting the French Voices program to draw attention to excellent works-in-progress of French-language literature in English translation. The French Voices awards (sponsored by the FACE Foundation) include one Grand Prize (with a purse of $10,000) and ten additional awards ($6000 each), with all prize moneys split between the translator and publisher of the book in English (the translator receives 1/3 of the smaller award or 2/5 of the Grand Prize, except in the case of graphic works, in which case the translator’s share is smaller). Some of the projects selected for support don’t have publishers yet – calling all publishers to take a look at this list!
The 2016 French Voices Grand Prize recipient is Youna Kwak for her translation of Daewoo by François Bon, to be published in 2019 by Diálogos Books.
The additional ten awards went to:
- Le Séminaire (2013) by Alain Badiou, translated by Susan Spitzer, Columbia University Press, 2017
- Amitié Eternelle (2014) by Anouck Durand, translated by Elizabeth Zuba, Siglio Press, 2017
- Mémoires d’outre-mer (2015) by Michaël Ferrier, translated by Martin Munro (this project still needs a publisher)
- Les Bas-fonds. Histoire d’un imaginaire (2013), by Dominique Kalifa, translated by Robin Holing (this project still needs a publisher)
- Lévi-Strauss (2015), by Emmanuelle Loyer, translated by Susan Spitzer, Polity Press, 2017
- Global Gay, Comment la revolution gay change le monde (2013) by Frédéric Martel, translated by Patsy Baudoin, The MIT Press, 2018
- La vengeance du traducteur (2006), Brice Matthieussent, translated by Emma Ramadan, Deep Vellum, 2017
- Achab (séquelles) (2015) by Pierre Senges, translated by Jacob Siefring, Contra Mundum Press, 2017
- Lire La Torah (2014) by Catherine Chalier, translated by Michael B. Smith, Duquesne University Press, 2017
- Joseph (2014) by Marie-Hélène Lafon, translated by Laurie Postlewate (this project still needs a publisher)
Congratulations to all the translators whose work was selected for support (and particularly to Susan Spitzer, who has two titles on the list)!
Applications are now being accepted for the 2017 round of prizes (May 15, 2017 deadline). You’ll find application guidelines on the French Embassy’s website.