Due to a variety of circumstances, including the surprisingly high number of eligible nominations, our volunteer jury has been unable to reach a final decision in the time scale we had originally set. As it is far more important that the jury come to a carefully considered conclusion than that we deliver a result on time, we have delayed the announcement of the winners of the inaugural awards. Further details regarding the new time scale will be announced shortly.
Latest Posts
Ajvaz Reviewed
Over at the Three Percent blog Chad Post is running reviews of all the books on the Best Translated Book Award long list. You can see the review of Michal Ajvaz’s The Golden Age here.
We Have Winners
The prize draw for the fund raiser promotion took place at the weekend and emails have gone off to lucky winners in the USA, Canada, UK, France and Finland. Writing an email to tell someone they had won a prize draw that would not get marked as spam was challenging, but if we don’t hear back we’ll do our best to track down the lucky winners.
Ajvaz on BTBA Long List
The long list for this year’s Best Translated Book Award (open to all works of literature) has been announced. The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz, translated from the Czech by Andrew Oakland (Dalkey Archive) is amongst the listed works. Ajvaz’s book is one of many also being looked at by our jury. The full BTBA long list is available here, and you can find links to samples of all the listed works on GalleyCat.
Thank You, Everyone
Our fund raiser is now over. We are delighted to announce that we received a total of $1159.01 from individual donors, and a further $605.00 from various institutions and members of our own Board of Directors. That’s a grand total of $1764.01 — a little way short of our target, but certainly enough to give cash prizes for the inaugural awards. Thank you everyone who donated!
Particular thanks go to the people of Finland who donated far more per head of population than any other country. Canada was second, and Australia third. The largest amount of donations came from the USA. We also received donations from the UK, France, Germany, Mexico and Singapore.
We will be doing the prize draw shortly and expect to announce the winners next week.
Japanese Novel is PKD Finalist
Our congratulations to Haikasoru. Harmony by Project Itoh, translated by Alexander O. Smith, is a finalist for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. We believe that this is the first time that a Japanese novel has been a finalist for a major US award. Project Itoh, real name Satoshi Itō, died in 2009.
Prize Draw: Final Day
Today is the final day of our fund raiser prize draw. You have until midnight (California time) to donate in order to be eligible for a prize. We have had over $1200 donated thus far, and we are hoping we can get a bit closer to our goal of $2000 by the end of the day. As a reminder, here’s the full list of what is on offer:
- A signed copy of The Graveyard Book donated by Neil Gaiman
- A signed copy of Finch, donated by Jeff VanderMeer
- A selection of 5 issues of Weird Tales (including the International issue). Donated by Ann VanderMeer
- A signed copy of And Now We Are Going to Have a Party by Nicola Griffith ($75 unsigned on Amazon)
- A copy of the original hardcover of Plan for Chaos by John Wyndham ($85 on Amazon)
- A signed copy of Evaporating Genres, donated by Gary K. Wolfe
- A signed copy of the limited edition hardback of The Reality Dysfunction (Subterranean), donated by Peter F. Hamilton
- Signed copies of Living With Ghosts (DAW) and The Four Musketeers: the true story of d’Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis and Athos, donated by Kari Sperring
- A selection of 3 SF books translated from Japanese, donated by Nick Mamatas
- A copy of Pierre Pevel’s The Cardinal’s Blades (translated from French), donated by Pyr Books
- A copy of Blood Out of a Stone by Élisabeth Vonarburg (translated from French), donated by Nanopress
- A copy of Joe R. Lansdale’s Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal (Tachyon)
All of the small print is available here, and details of our non-profit status are here.
Big In Spain
Our thanks to Manuel de los Reyes for writing a great article about our awards on the Spanish language web site, Literatura Prospectiva. You can read it here.
VanderMeers Seek Translated Fiction for Leviathan 5
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer will be seeking out translated fiction for the 5th in their series of Leviathan anthologies. On his blog Jeff says:
We are going to do something fairly unprecedented in the history of genre and have between 15 and 20 associate/foreign language editors in other countries so that many writers who do not write in English would be able to submit. Up to 30,000 words of the 100,000 words might be fiction newly translated for Leviathan 5.
Full details are available here.
Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Awards
We have been sent a Call for Entries for the 2010-2011 Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Awards. Here’s the introduction:
Stephen C. Soong (1919–1996) was a prolific writer as well as an active figure in the promotion of translation education and research. To commemorate his contributions in this field, the Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Awards were set up in 1997 by the Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with a donation from the Soong family. It gives recognition to academics who have made contributions to original research in Chinese Translation Studies, particularly in the use of first-hand sources for historical and cultural investigations.
Full details of how to enter are below the cut…
Read more