The National Translation Award is awarded annually in poetry and in prose to literary translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality. The NTA is the oldest prize for a work of literary translation in English, and the only one to include an evaluation of the source language text.
Submissions for the National Translation Award in Prose are being accepted until April 7, 2017. This year’s judges are Carol Apollonio, Eric Becker, and Ottilie Mulzet. Learn more about them here:
Carol Apollonio is Professor of the Practice of Russian at Duke University, author of the book Dostoevsky’s Secrets, and editor and author of books and articles on nineteenth-century Russian literature, specializing in Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and problems of translation. Recipient of the centennial Chekhov medal from the Russian Ministry of Culture (2010), she currently serves as president of the North American Dostoevsky Society. Translator of books from the Russian and the Japanese, including works by Kizaki Satoko, German Sadulaev, and, most recently, Alisa Ganieva. Her forthcoming project is a translation of Ganieva’s 2015 novel Bride and Groom.
Eric M. B. Becker is an award-winning literary
credit: Luisa Leme
translator, journalist, and editor of Words without Borders. In 2014, he earned a PEN/Heim grant for his translations of Mia Couto. In 2016, he earned a Fulbright fellowship to translate Brazilian literature. Becker’s translations include work by Mia Couto, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and Lygia Fagundes Telles in such publications as The New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, and World Literature Today.
Ottilie Mulzet translates from Hungarian and Mongolian, and writes literary criticism. Her translation of László Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below won the Best Translated Book Award in 2014, and in 2015, she shared the Translator’s Prize with poet and fellow translator George Szirtes for László Krasznahorkai’s lifetime achievement Man Booker International Prize. Forthcoming translations include Lazarus, by Gábor Schein (Seagull Books, 2017), and The Homecoming of Baron Wenckheim by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, 2018). In addition, she is completing a dissertation about Mongolian riddles, and a book of translations of Mongolian Buddhist legends.
