The American Literary Translators Association has just announced the shortlist for the 2018 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize for the translation into English of a work of literature from an Asian language. This year’s judges for the $5000 award include Robert Hueckstedt, Sora Kim-Russell, and Juliet Winters Carpenter.
This is the first year that translations of prose works have been eligible for this prize; it used to be reserved for poetry translated from an Asian language. I expect there’ll be some discussion of the change and the reasons for it at this year’s ALTA conference. Only two of the books on the short list are works of poetry. In my experience, translation prizes open to both poetry and prose works tend to go to works of prose.
Here are the finalists for this year’s award (in alphabetical order by title):
Darkening Mirror by Wang Jiaxin, translated from the Chinese by Diana Shi and George O’Connell (Tebot Bach)
Devils in Daylight by Junichiro Tanizaki, translated from the Japanese by J. Keith Vincent (New Directions)
The Maids by Junichiro Tanizaki, translated from the Japanese by Michael P. Cronin (New Directions)
Notes of a Crocodile, by Qiu Miaojin, translated from the Chinese by Bonnie Huie (New York Review Books)
Sonic Peace, by Kiriu Minashita, translated from the Japanese by Eric E. Hyett and Spencer Thurlow (Phoneme Media)
For more information about the award and the shortlisted books, please visit the ALTA website. The winning translation will be announced during ALTA’s annual conference, ALTA41: Performance, Props, and Platforms, to be held in Bloomington, IN from Oct. 31 – Nov. 3. Hope to see you there!