The American Literary Translators Association is pleased to share updates to a number of the awards it offers starting with its 2020 cycle:

First, ALTA is excited to announce that the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose, previously open only to translators with U.S. citizenship or residence, will now accept submissions of translations from translators of any nationality. It is the feeling of the ALTA Board and Awards Committee that this will allow the National Translation Awards to be as diverse as ALTA’s membership itself, in addition to contributing to the mission of literary translators around the world to communicate through and despite international borders.

Additionally, after discussion between ALTA’s Board, Awards Committee, membership, and the sponsor of the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, the guidelines for the Lucien Stryk Prize have been clarified to state that book-length translations of a) poetry (not prose) OR b) source texts from Zen Buddhism (which must not consist solely of commentaries) will be accepted. Translations from Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, or Vietnamese into English will be considered. ALTA is grateful to all parties involved who contributed to this discussion.

Finally, an update from White Pine Press regarding the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation: Cliff Becker (1964-2005) was a lifelong supporter of the literary arts. He began his career at the National Endowment for the Arts in 1992 as a literature specialist, was named Acting Director in 1997, and in 1999 became the NEA’s Director of Literature. His tenure as Literature Director was cut short by his untimely death in 2005. The Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation was instituted in 2011 to honor his service to literature and literary translation, with White Pine Press as the publisher of the winning manuscripts. ALTA administered the prize from 2015 to 2018, but starting in 2020 the prize will be both administered and published by White Pine Press and will be chosen from works submitted to the press.

We look forward to seeing all submissions to the ALTA awards! Submissions are open via ALTA’s Submittable page until April 20, 2020.