The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is delighted to spotlight the judges of the 2024 awards!
We are honored to have these judges serving in 2024 on the panels of the National Translation Awards (NTA) in Prose and Poetry, the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, the Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA), the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award (SUFTA), the ALTA First Translation Prize, and the ALTA Travel Fellowships.
To learn more about each award and the judges, read below. For individual judges’ bios, photo credits, and image descriptions, click the provided links.
The National Translation Award (NTA) 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 considers translations from translators of any nationality. The NTA is the only prize for a work of literary translation into English to include a full evaluation of the source language text. 2024 marks the twenty-sixth year of the NTA and the tenth year in which the NTA is awarded separately in poetry and prose. The winners of the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose will be awarded a $4,000 prize each.
The 2024 National Translation Award in Prose judges are Philip Boehm, Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Will Forrester, Joon-Li Kim, and poupeh missaghi. Learn about them here.
The 2024 National Translation Award in Poetry judges are Kazim Ali, Ronnie Apter, and Mary Jo Bang. Learn about them here.
The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, which was inaugurated in 2009, recognizes the importance of Asian translation for international literature and promotes the translation of Asian poetry into English. Stryk was an internationally acclaimed translator of Japanese and Chinese Zen poetry, renowned Zen poet himself, and former professor of English at Northern Illinois University. The winner of the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize will be awarded a $6,000 prize. Both translators and publishers are invited to submit titles.
The 2024 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize judges are Eric Hyett, Archana Madhavan, and Shriram Sivaramakrishnan. Learn about them here.
The Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA), which was inaugurated in 2015, recognizes the importance of contemporary Italian prose (fiction and literary non-fiction) and promotes the translation of Italian works into English. This $5,000 prize is awarded annually to a translator of a recent work of Italian prose (fiction or literary non-fiction). Both translators and publishers are invited to submit titles.
The 2024 Italian Prose in Translation Award judges are Johanna Bishop, Isabella Corletto, and Diana Thow. Learn about them here.
The Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award (SUFTA), inaugurated in 2022, is offered by the American Literary Translators Association in conjunction with the Spain-USA Foundation. The award recognizes translations into English of literary prose works written originally by authors of Spanish (Spain) nationality. The source language of the original text may be Spanish, Catalan, Basque, or Galician. The winner of the SUFTA will be awarded a $5,000 prize. Both translators and publishers are invited to submit titles.
The 2024 Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award judges are Jonathan Beutler, Regina Galasso, and Kathleen McNerney. Learn about them here.
The ALTA First Translation Prize, inaugurated in 2024, recognizes the work of emerging literary translators and their editors. This annual prize is open to all genres, and awards 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 are eligible. The winner will receive a cash prize of $3,000, with $2,000 bestowed to the translator and $1,000 to the editor. Both translators and publishers are invited to submit titles.
The 2024 ALTA First Translation Prize judges are Esther Allen, Alexa Frank, and Urayoán Noel. Learn about them here.
Each year, a number of $1,000 Travel Fellowships are awarded to emerging translators to help them participate in the annual ALTA conference. Included in these Fellowships is the Peter K. Jansen Memorial Travel Fellowship, which is preferentially awarded to an emerging translator of color or a translator working from an underrepresented diaspora or stateless language. ALTA Travel Fellows are invited to read their translated work at a keynote event, giving them an opportunity to present their translations to an audience of translators, authors, editors, and publishers from around the world.
The 2024 Travel Fellowships judges are Laura Nagle, Öykü Tekten, and Saskia Vogel. Learn about them here.
Submissions for ALTA’s awards are open until March 18, 2024 at 11:59pm PT. Submit today!