November 11, 2023–The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is excited to announce that starting in 2024, it will confer a new award: the ALTA First Translation Prize.

This annual award will recognize the work of emerging literary translators and their editors. The ALTA First Translation Prize will be open to all genres, and will recognize one debut literary translation from any other language into English published in the previous calendar year. Translators based anywhere in the world and translations published anywhere in the world will be eligible. The winner will receive a cash prize of $3,000, with $2,000 bestowed to the translator and $1,000 to the editor. 

This prize is inspired by the TA First Translation Prize in the UK, which was founded in 2017 by Daniel Hahn and is administered by the Society of Authors. 

This new prize was proposed to ALTA by Daniel Hahn, Esther Allen, and Susan Bernofsky. 

“The ALTA First Translation Prize has been founded to recognize the brilliance of early-career translators publishing around the globe and draw attention to their contributions to the literary landscape,” said Hahn, Allen, and Bernofsky in a joint statement. “As longstanding ALTA members, we are particularly glad that this important new prize is being hosted and run by our wonderful professional organization. The prize is supported by a distinguished group of experienced translators who have joined forces to sustain the future of the still-emerging culture of translation they’ve helped establish. 

“By spotlighting the work of colleagues new to the field,” they continued, “and of the editors who give these translators their first major publishing opportunities, the prize celebrates translators, publishers of translation, and translation itself, and aims to draw a wide range of new readers to the books translation brings us.” 

“ALTA is committed to recognizing the work of early-career literary translators in our programming, from Travel Fellowships to the Emerging Translator Mentorship Program and beyond,” said ALTA Incoming President Chenxin Jiang. “It is exciting to see this vote of confidence in ALTA’s commitment to this mission, from a group of experienced translators who have come together to make this new award a reality. We look forward to continuing the work of celebrating literary translation and translators with the ALTA First Translation Prize starting next year.”

The prize is generously funded by a group of ALTA members, including Esther Allen, Susan Bernofsky, Geoffrey Brock, Karen Emmerich, Daniel Hahn, Corine Tachtiris, Padma Viswanathan, and Natasha Wimmer. 

The inaugural submissions cycle will open in mid-January 2024.