Join us as we count down to the ALTA44: Inflection Points awards ceremony with the National Translation Award in Poetry and Prose longlisted titles! We will be featuring the titles in alphabetical order alongside blurbs penned by our judges for the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. This year’s prose judges are Jennifer Croft, Anton Hur, and Annie Janusch. This year’s judges for poetry are Sinan Antoon, Layla Benitez-James, and Sibelan Forrester.

The winning translators will receive a $2,500 cash prize each. The awards will be announced at ALTA’s annual conference, ALTA44: Inflection Points, which this year is being held jointly online and in-person in Tucson, AZ. The virtual awards ceremony will be aired on Saturday, October 16, at 5:00pm PT. To attend, register via the virtual conference platform (there is also a free ticket option that includes public events like this one.)

Join us as we shine the spotlight today on this NTA longlisted title, along with a citation penned by the judges:

The King of Warsaw
By Szczepan Twardoch
Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye
(Amazon Crossing)

This is a tremendous feat of translation by Sean Bye, a meticulous reckoning with a heterogeneity that no longer exists in Poland. Despite all the care and research that went into the production of this English version of the novel, it reads gorgeously and never draws attention to itself. The book itself is a fascinating and suspenseful chronicle of Jewish Warsaw just before the Holocaust. It is also a nuanced coming-of-age story, as it chronicles one young man’s quest for meaning and power in the wake of his father’s gruesome murder.