October 7, 2017—The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is delighted to announce the winner of the 2017 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. The award was officially announced during ALTA’s annual conference, ALTA40: Reflections/Refractions, held this year at the Radisson Blu Downtown in Minneapolis, MN from October 5-8, 2017. Lucien 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 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize recognizes the importance of Asian translation for international literature and promotes the translation of Asian works into English. This year’s judges are Eleanor Goodman, Kendall Heitzman, and Aditi Machado.

Winner: 2017 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize

Not Written Words
by Xi Xi
Translated from the Chinese by Jennifer Feeley
(Zephyr Press)

Words from the judges: Jennifer Feeley’s superb translation captures all of the creativity, intellect, and playfulness in the verse of premier Hong Kong poet Xi Xi. In these skillfully wrought and daring poems, Feeley employs all the tools of the English language, including unforced end and internal rhyme, alliteration, wordplay, and references that run the gamut from nursery rhymes and fairy tales to fine art to contemporary politics. In deceptively lighthearted poems such as “Excerpt from a Feminist Dictionary,” the verse rings as powerfully in the English as it does in the original Chinese:

I is I
you you
The third-person pronoun they
Combating the trade of lad/ies of the night

A hen is a shen
Heir sheir
Heaven Sheaven
A Hebrew woman a Shebrew

Mankind wekind
History herstory

This translation is essential reading, providing a window into the rich literature of Hong Kong and the larger Sinophone world.

Submissions for the 2018 Lucien Stryk Prize will be accepted starting in January 2018. Please visit us at www.literarytranslators.org/awards for more information.