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:

No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories
By Jayant Kaikini
Translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana
(Catapult)

No Presents Please deserves all the presents for its intimate and life-affirming portrayal of ordinary people in Mumbai. This collection of short stories features a range of people, from a modest shop owner who passes on his late parents’ love, to a Bollywood stunt artist about to take to the air one more time. Each story is a perfectly crafted world where the unexpected suddenly expands the reader’s horizons in a single thrilling and affecting moment. Jayant Kaikini’s generous vision combines with Tejaswini Niranjana’s virtuoso translation to create a reading experience that is distinctly of its place, and profoundly universal at the same time.