Every two years, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awards a $20,000 prize to “a practitioner, scholar, or patron who has made a significant contribution to the art of literary translation.” This year’s winner of the Thornton Wilder Prize is Bill Porter, a writer who translates from Chinese under the pen name Red Pine, specializing in Taoist and Buddhist poetry and sutras. Previous winners of the Thornton Wilder Prize (which I see I’ve somehow managed not to blog before, even the year I actually attended the ceremony) are Jamey Gambrell (2016), David Hinton (2014), Michael Hofmann (2012), and Gregory Rabassa (2009).
There was another translator among this year’s AAAL awardees, too: Clare Cavanagh, who received a $10,000 Arts and Letters Award in Literature along with some equally illustrious honorees.
For the full list of 2018 prizes and recipients, visit the American Academy of Arts and Letters website. Congratulations to the translators honored for their contributions to the field!