2020 ALTA Awards

43rd Annual ALTA Sept. 30 – Oct. 18, 2020 Conference

THE AMERICAN LITERARY TRANSLATORS ASSOCIATION

2020 ALTA Awards THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR ONLINE TRANSLATION CERTIFICATE INTERPRETATION has been one of the premier NCI now offers an online, non-credit Spanish/ providers of high quality interpreter training since English Translation Certificate with courses its inception in 1983. focused on legal translation, medical translation, and business translation. Contact us for more information: [email protected] More about the Certificate: nci.arizona.edu/online-translation-certificate WEBINARS Throughout the year, NCI offers a variety of COURT INTERPRETER TRAINING INSTITUTE webinars focused on essential aspects of (CITI) interpreting, from ethical considerations to Each summer, NCI offers its prestigious Court skill-building to specialized content such as Interpreter Training Institute (CITI). Now in its drug and weapons terminology. NCI offers both 38th year, the CITI is NCI’s most comprehensive Spanish/English webinars and language neutral training and is renowned nationally. The CITI webinars that are open to interpreters of all begins in June with online pre-testing followed languages. NCI’s webinar schedule changes by a series of webinars and online work, followed throughout the year, so check back often. You by two intensive weeks in July with the CITI’s can also join our mailing list to receive updates exceptional, federally certified instructors. It’s a as we post new trainings. once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Webinar Schedule: More information about the CITI: nci.arizona.edu/workshop-schedule nci.arizona.edu/training/citi Congratulations to the translators on the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award shortlist! See what judges Jeanne Bonner, Richard Dixon, and Tony Italian Prose Shugaar had to say about each of the shortlisted titles (in alphabetical in Translation order by title). Award Shortlist Purchase these titles at the ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair.

At The Wolf’s Table Beyond Babylon The Bishop’s Bedroom by Rosella Postorino by Igiaba Scego by Piero Chiara translated from Italian by translated from Italian by translated from Italian by Jill Foulston Leah D. Janeczko Aaron Robertson (New Vessel Press) (Flatiron Books) (Two Lines Press) In this sophisticated and at times Set in the final stages of World War II, Igiaba Scego’s sprawling modern moody murder mystery, two men meet this novel is inspired by the real-life epic of a novel tells us the story of two up in post-war Northern Italy and experience of a German woman who half-sisters, and in the process drops become friends as they sail around is conscripted to taste dishes to be us into contemporary Rome, a fasci- Lake Maggiore. The author, Piero served to Adolf Hitler. Rosa Sauer’s nating city of immigrants and refugees. Chiara, has expertly combined what the parents are dead, her husband is fight- Readers may see the Eternal City and late John Gardner considered fiction’s ing on the Eastern Front, and she is Italy through an entirely new lens—the two main storylines: a stranger comes sheltering with his parents when the SS lens of people who escaped all kinds to town, and a man goes on a journey. come knocking at her door. She and a of tragedies (in the case of one sister, In this case, the stranger is the owner handful of women, her fellow food-tast- Argentina’s Dirty War) to remake their of a small sailing vessel, while the man ers, are forced to eat food that some- lives in a new place. While weaving who goes on the journey is a wealthy one might have poisoned. Leah D. an engrossing story, Scego, who is of villa owner whose accounting of his Janeczko well renders the intensity of Somali descent, touches on myriad wartime adventures in Africa doesn’t the original text, capturing the drama of controversial issues facing Italy (and quite add up. Or is that the case? the women’s plight, their tensions, anxi- not only Italy), including colonialism, Chiara keeps us guessing and reading, eties, and despair, and has a fine ear racism, and sexism—and face them it with the combination of the stranger for dialogue that flows smoothly and must. Such a brimming, polyglot novel and the journey resulting in tragedy, compellingly. provided no end of challenges to trans- heartache, and disaffection. The novel lator Aaron Robertson, who provides an is eminently readable, thanks to the accessible English version of Scego’s spare and accurate—in everything from witty, frank Italian. mood to diction—translation by Jill Foulston, who matches Chiara’s peer- less knowledge of winds, tides, and other nautical concerns that pepper tthe narrative.

2020 ALTA Awards 3 —Italian Prose in Translation Award Shortlist

Since 2015, the Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA) has recognized the importance of contemporary Italian prose and promoted the translation of Italian works into English. This prize is awarded annually to a translator of a recent work of Italian prose (fiction or literary nonfiction). Publishers are invited to submit titles for consideration at the beginning of the year. For more information, visit literarytranslators.org.

I Am God Ithaca Forever: Penelope by Giacomo Sartori Speaks, A Novel translated from Italian by by Luigi Malerba Frederika Randall translated from Italian by (Restless Books) Douglas Grant Heise God has an existential crisis and falls (University of California Press) in love with the unlikeliest of humans. Odysseus’s return to his wife Penelope Why, he asks, with eight billion to look after his twenty-year absence is after, should I go for a geneticist who masterfully retold in this intriguing novel also happens to be a fanatical atheist? that pries open the gaps in Homer’s Being all-powerful is losing its appeal, narrative. Did she really fail to recog- but would life as a mortal be any better? nize him when he appeared before Through the eyes of our omniscient her dressed as a beggar? Malerba’s narrator, we look at the immensity of interpretation highlights Odysseus’s human insignificance, as he meditates vanity—and Penelope’s resentment— on beauty, goodness, the environ- when she realizes his first interest is to ment, the cosmos, and our miserable test her fidelity. He has been fighting attempts at religion. Sartori’s deliciously wars and seeking adventure, while hers absurd humor is magnificently trans- has been a life of solitude, a marriage lated by Frederika Randall, who catches on hold. Douglas Grant Heise brilliantly his mocking voice with great ingenuity, captures the voices of the returning delivering well-honed one-liners with victor and his emotional inadequacies, impeccable timing and all the skill of a and the long-suffering wife who isn’t standup comic. prepared to go along with his games.

2020 ALTA Awards 4 Congratulations to the translators on the 2020 Lucien Stryk Asian Transla- tion Prize shortlist! See what judges Noh Anothai, John Balcom, and E. J. Lucien Koh had to say about each of the shortlisted titles (in alphabetical order by Stryk Asian title). Purchase these titles at the ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair. Translation Prize Shortlist

Hysteria Pioneers of Modern No Poetry: Selected Poems by Kim Yideum Japanese Poetry of Che Qianzi translated from Korean by Jake Levine, by Muro Saisei, Kaneko Mitsuhara, by Che Qianzi Soeun Seo, and Hedgie Choi Miyoshi Tatsuji, and Nagase Kiyoko translated from Chinese by (Action Books) translated from Japanese by Yunte Huang Takako Lento (Polymorph Editions) Kim Yideum’s Hysteria, translated by Jake Levine, Soeun Seo, and Hedgie (Cornell University Press) In the poem “Three Basic Colors,” an Choi, resists established Korean literary Pioneers of Modern Japanese Poetry, artist draws three lines in crayon on culture in the tradition of Korean femi- edited and translated by Takako Lento, a blank page: “Three straight lines,” nist poetics. Page by page, Yideum’s is a superb anthology of four major someone (a “big shot”) comments, poems against rationality, lyricism, and 20th-century poets: Muro Saisei, “Symbolizing three paths.” In response, polite society reckon with both politi- Kaneko Mitsuhara, Miyoshi Tatsuji, and the artist draws something new: “Fail- cal and personal revolutions. Accord- Nagase Kiyoko, who all made signifi- ing to understand / (what did he say?) / ingly, the rendering of her poems across cant contributions to the development I drew again, as I liked / Three circles.” languages is multifold, as Yideum’s of modern Japanese poetry. A substan- In his collection No Poetry, Che Qianzi words must be as intentionally irratio- tial selection of work by each poet is displays a similar playfulness with nal as historical oppression. These taut, presented in nuanced, idiomatic trans- convention (literary, orthographical) unsettled poems burst into flames in lation facing the original Japanese. The and expectation (logical, linear)—as the hands of the reader, a burning fuse translator succeeds in delivering engag- well as with geometric shapes, with the creating a clear path for contemporary ing renditions of the four distinct poets, layout of words on the page, with the Korean women’s poetry. with their diverse themes, voices, and very form of Chinese ideographs. This styles—in evoking, in short, the life of bilingual edition allows us to appreci- the original words. The collection is ate translator Yunte Huang’s finesse further enhanced by a general intro- at reflecting these verbal and visual duction that provides the literary and elements in English, allowing a voice to historical context of the poems, while take shape that is delightfully exper- each poet’s work is smartly staged with imental and idiosyncratic. Through a preface on his or her life and career. Huang’s skill, “no poetry” has not meant “no translation.”

2020 ALTA Awards 5 Titles eligible for the 2020 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize were book-length translations into English of Asian poetry, or of source texts —Lucien from Zen Buddhism (which must not consist solely of commentaries) Stryk Asian translated from Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Sanskrit, Translation Tamil, Thai, or Vietnamese into English, published anywhere in the world in the previous calendar year (2019). Publishers and translators Prize Shortlist are invited to submit titles for consideration at the beginning of the year, and book selection is based on the quality of the finished book in English. For more information, visit literarytranslators.org.

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2020 ALTA Awards 6 Congratulations to all the titles selected for the longlist for this year’s National Translation Award in Prose! Featuring authors writing in nine National different languages, this year’s longlist expands the prize’s dedication to Translation literary diversity in English. Please note that these titles did not proceed Award in Prose to the shortlist. See what judges Amaia Gabantxo, Emmanuel D. Harris II, and William Maynard Hutchins have to say about each of the longlisted Longlist titles, chosen from among nearly 240 submissions, below (in alphabetical order by title). Purchase these titles at the ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair.

Among the Lost At Dusk Ithaca Forever: Penelope by Emiliano Monge by Hwang Sok-yong Speaks translated from Spanish by translated from Korean by by Luigi Malerba Frank Wynne Sora Kim-Russell translated from Italian by (Scribe) (Scribe) Douglas Grant Heise (University of California Press) . . . drawing nearer, mothers to children, I have something for you, she said. children to men, those who have been There’s a soft cadence to Hwang I’ve never trusted sailors, whom I know walking now for many days begin to Sok-yong’s At Dusk, a plainness that to be the biggest liars in the world. sing their fears. defies its subject matter. Ordered What might have been one more clever Among the Lost is a rich literary novel around a tale of rags to riches, the adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey with layered with echoes of Dante, Shake- novel follows architect Park Minwoo— special attention to Penelope becomes, speare, and Milton. The novel balances once a slum-dweller—and a lost love, through the combined alchemy of the the dark and macabre reality of Mexi- Cha Soona, whose recounting of late author and the lively translator, a co’s human trafficking around the their common memories makes Park convincing contemporary novel. borderlands with migrant voices and Minwoo reconsider the nature of his stylistic turns thick with grim humor. own evolution: his successful architec- The pace is fast—the novel takes tural practice, and the changes it has place in one day—and yet the scope effected in the Korean landscapes and of it is epic, biblical. Its subject matter in the lives of the inhabitants of those is topical, urgent, and necessary, and landscapes (himself included). The Monge’s execution is thrilling, combin- story grows more political as it moves, ing the high lyricism of canonical tales questioning the nature of progress and with the earthy notes of collected the evolution of Korean society itself. migrants’ testimonies. Frank Wynne’s Sora Kim-Russell’s translation imbues translation is beautiful, a labor of love its apparent narrative succinctness with filled with literary resonance. something larger and more menacing.

2020 ALTA Awards 7 —National Translation Award in Prose Longlist

The Old Woman and the The Quarter Welcome to America River by Naguib Mahfouz by Linda Boström Knausgård by Ismail Fahd Ismail translated from Arabic by Roger Allen translated from Swedish by translated from Arabic by (Saqi Books) Martin Aitken Sophia Vasalou (World Editions) (Interlink Books) Umm Radi, who sold spice-paste, declared: “Glances from those flashing It’s a long time already since I stopped Um Qasem racks her brain . . . As . . . eyes . . . go straight into the heart of the talking. They’re used to it now. My mum, an important question weighs on her person she’s talking to . . .” my brother. My dad’s dead, so I don’t mind . . . “What will happen to our nine Roger Allen has, for many years, been know what he’d . . . say . . . donkeys?” one of the most distinguished West- A difficult subject—a troubled girl and As the recently deceased Kuwaiti ern scholars and translators of Arabic her small, shaky domestic world—is author, who was born in Iraq, explains literature. He brings those years of narrated so effectively and convincingly (whether factually or not) in his preface, study and his personal friendship with by the author and the translator that the one strip of farmland, his natal village, Naguib Mahfouz to excellent purpose in book is a joy to read. What more can was spared from destruction by the this translation of a formerly lost set of you ask for? Iran-Iraq war. He invents (or describes) stories by the late Nobel Prize winner. a village woman whose dedication For readers of Mahfouz, this book may to her land and to her departed or well remind them of his book Foun- deceased neighbors wins the hearts of tain and Tomb. Like that collection of the Iraqi soldiers bivouacked nearby stories, The Quarter has a mysteri- and charged with defending the area. ous, sacred structure at one end of the She thus saves her fertile village, street—in this case, a cellar. aided and abetted by her donkey. The translator never allows the pathos of the story to turn to bathos in this gentle, heartfelt tale.

2020 ALTA Awards 8 Congratulations to all the titles selected this year for the longlist for this year’s National Translation Award in Poetry! Featuring authors writing in National seven different languages, this year’s longlist expands the prize’s dedi- Translation cation to literary diversity in English. Please note that these titles did not Award in proceed to the shortlist. See what judges Ilya Kaminsky, Lisa Katz, and Farid Matuk have to say about each of the longlisted titles, chosen from Poetry Longlist among more than sixty submissions, below (in alphabetical order by title). Purchase these titles at the ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair.

The Chilean Flag Forty-One Objects The Next Loves by Elvira Hernandez by Carsten Rene Nielsen by Stéphane Bouquet translated from Spanish by translated from Danish by translated from French by Alec Schumacher David Keplinger Lindsay Turner (Kenning Editions) (Bitter Oleander Press) (Nightboat Books) La bandera de Chile is a legendary Following in the footsteps of Michaux, Impulses to luxuriate in the present work that we are all very lucky to finally Carsten Rene Nielsen reinvents the haunted by anticipated ends, philo- be able to read in Alec Schumacher’s prose poem as a paragraph in which sophical interrogations made rigorous beautiful English translation. Written the line between reality and illusion is no in pillow talk, and courageous bear- in 1981, this book pays homage to the longer obvious: they happen at once, ing of the body’s—and the mind’s— victims of the Pinochet regime. But with cinematic clarity. Skillfully trans- availability to intimate impressions: it’s the formal and tonal qualities of lated by David Keplinger, these poems Stéphane Bouquet’s The Next Loves this homage that are, perhaps, most give us a dreamscape where imagina- serves all of these with a claim so impressive: both playful and mournful, tion is allowed to roam and possibili- light on the reader’s attention that the witty and political, tender and sharp, ties are endless. Carsten Rene Nielsen wanting it leaves is the surest sign the work continues to defy expecta- deserves to be better known outside his of Bouquet’s mastery over the inter- tions. It is both a collage of unrelated native Denmark. twined magic of language and seduc- fragments and a very unified, almost tion. Lindsay Turner’s brilliance as choral project. It redefines the idea of both poet and translator ensures that nationhood to such an extent that by every slide across discourses, every the end of the book, the flag becomes rift between fragments, every long run a gag in the mouth of that nation. This across sequences built of verse or translation is extraordinary. prose evokes Bouquet’s vast desire for vastness itself, as if to “speak / mouths directly in the midst of things.”

2020 ALTA Awards 9 –National Translation Award in Poetry Longlist

The Hammer by Adelaide Ivánova translated from Portuguese by Chris Daniels (Commune Editions) This debut volume by Brazilian poet Adelaide Ivánova offers a startling in-your-face riff on rape and other gender-based violence, making use of epigraphs, reportage, myth, and literary and other public figures, while weaving a history for the speaker. It’s an important translation. The effect of Ivánova’s short sentences in Chris Daniels’s precise English is catalytic, moving the reader to explore her rich vein of sources, and to connect the dots: “if there are 2 on the mattress / for 1 visitor there will / always be someone not / innocent.”

Books eligible for the 2020 National Translation Award were titles published anywhere in the world in the previous calendar year (2019) in English translation. Publishers are invited to submit titles for consideration at the beginning of the year; book selection is based on the quality of the finished book in English, and the quality of the translation is evaluated by a team of expert readers. For more information, visit literarytranslators.org.

2020 ALTA Awards 10 Congratulations to all the titles selected for the shortlist for this year’s National Translation Award in Prose! See what judges Amaia Gabantxo, National Emmanuel D. Harris II, and William Maynard Hutchins have to say Translation about each of the shortlisted titles, below (in alphabetical order by title). Award in Prose Purchase these titles at the ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair. Shortlist

Beyond Babylon The Cheffe: A Cook’s Novel A Couple of Soles: A Comic by Igiaba Scego by Marie NDiaye Play from Seventeenth- translated from Italian by translated from French by Century China Aaron Robertson Jordan Stump by Li Yu (Two Lines Press) (Alfred A. Knopf) translated from Chinese by Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel I’ve always pitied Spain. Whereas the applause soon turned to (Columbia University Press) Beyond Babylon is a polyphonic, glorification of the Cheffe herself, and transoceanic, fragmented family epic then ventured into the secret world of To have actors act a play about an spanning three continents with the her presumed intentions, a longing to acting school, Mediterranean Sea at its core—the blue know her truest being, the only possible . . . mass that defines the Somali-Italian source for those sublime dishes. A leading lady and a leading man, relationship, the mare nostrum: both a The translator informs us that Cheffe Form a match that’s made in Heaven! grave and a passage to hope. Through is a new word in French, meaning “a In translating this delightful 17th-cen- half-sisters Mar and Zuhra, Igiaba female chef.” The novel, by French tury Chinese romp, Jing Shen and Scego explores the history of Ital- Senegalese NDiaye, deftly parleys the Robert E. Hegel have used their metic- ian colonialism and the uneven power language of culinary delight with the ulous scholarship to create a lively relations that define it. It’s a story of subtleties of nonverbal communication comedy in which a young scholar and migration and identity, of the so-called between a businesswoman and her a young actress outwit her parents and marginal condition—marginal through challenging daughter. The enchanting corrupt government officials. The trans- race, gender, religion, and language. text that results uncovers the histories lators’ critical apparatus is as thorough It is also a Great Italian Novel, in the behind an otherwise very public cheffe as it is unobtrusive. biggest sense of the word. Aaron and her personal realities. Robertson navigates the polyglottic nature of the text wonderfully, letting the rhythms of Italian and the sounds of Somali, Arabic, and Amharic swim across his translation.

2020 ALTA Awards 11 —National Translation Award in Prose Shortlist

God’s Wife Optic Nerve Zuleikha by Amanda Michalopoulou by María Gainza by Guzel Yakhina translated from Greek by translated from Spanish by translated from Russian by Patricia Felisa Barbeito Thomas Bunstead Lisa C. Hayden (Dalkey Archive Press) (Catapult) (Oneworld) Having lived for so long by the side of I never used to resort to quotations A village road smoothly curves and Him who created All from Nothing, I am very much but in these past months I flows off toward the horizon, like a river. finally creating something of my own. I have read like a convict. . . . I have also Windows are already lighting in some am creating you. realized that being good with quotations houses. Quickly, Zuleika. Amanda Michalopoulou’s God’s Wife is means avoiding having to think for The harsh and desolate land of Sovi- a metaphysical, philosophical, post- oneself. et-era Siberia forms the backdrop of modern novel. The question of exis- This engaging work from Argentina Yakhina’s first novel, an ambitious tence is key to it: writing, and the idea of provides a self-portrait of the first-per- narrative capturing the strength of the bringing oneself into being, are built and son narrator through an analysis of her human spirit. Zuleika discovers the deconstructed in a narrative that exam- interactions with quite different works of means to survive an abusive husband ines notions of love, creation, feminin- art. The translator achieves a narrative and cruel mother-in-law in a story ity, and faith. The narrator is unreliable. intensity that does not drag or become wrought with imagery and discovery. Whoever this God/husband may pretentious. Hayden’s powerful, yet sensitive, trans- be—this is irrelevant—what matters lation incorporates songs and legends and confounds here is the nature of from Russian and Tatar sayings into a the wife’s tale itself: the atemporality seamlessly captivating epic tale. What of heaven makes for an amorphous, at first glance appears geographically nonlinear narrative consisting of letters, distant becomes intimate, relatable, myths, stretches of stream-of-con- and in many ways triumphant. sciousness, gossip, hallucinations. Like Penelope, God’s wife can only make and unmake, weave and unweave. And, in the process, make-write herself. Patricia Felisa Barbeito deftly reflects Michalopoulou’s evocative prose and playful, wandering moods.

2020 ALTA Awards 12 Congratulations to all the titles selected this year for the shortlist for this year’s National Translation Award in Poetry! See what judges Ilya Kamin- National sky, Lisa Katz, and Farid Matuk have to say about each of the shortlisted Translation titles, below (in alphabetical order by title). Purchase these titles at the Award in ALTA43 Virtual Bookfair. Poetry Shortlist

The Battle Between the Hysteria The Last Innocence/The Frogs and the Mice: A Tiny by Kim Yideum Lost Adventures Homeric Epic translated from Korean by Jake Levine, by Alejandra Pizarnik translated from Greek by A. E. Stallings Soeun Seo, and Hedgie Choi translated from Spanish by (Paul Dry Books) (Action Books) Cecilia Rossi A. E. Stallings’s translations are always One of the co-translators of this (Ugly Duckling Presse) a masterclass in music-making. Here, good-humored and confrontational The directness and lucidity of these she offers us a lively, crisp version of a book notes in his afterword that the translations of multilingual Argentine classic text: we meet the mouse named style of Korean poet Kim Yideum is poet Alejandra Pizarnik present her Crumbsnatcher, killed by the reckless “intentionally excessive . . . and irra- work to us with its enigmas intact. For frog King Pufferthroat, starting a war tional.” Her speaker is a hipster who example, take “Ashes,” in which the sky between species. This age-old parable makes brash statements about quotid- described by the poet is then claimed is well known, but Stallings’s charm- ian experiences that may occur in to be watching her, and the atmosphere ing and often hilarious version makes it any crowded city. In the title poem, a owns emotions and a face, which one come to life via word choice and rhym- woman being groped on the subway might expect to belong to the speaker: ing couplets. Translators should know imagines her revenge: “I want to kill “Night splintered into stars / it watched at least one language well, prefera- the motherfucker. . . . If only I could go me stunned / the air scatters hatred / bly their own, W. H. Auden suggested. to the sandy beach on the red coast, its face beautified by music.” Pizarnik Stallings, a virtuoso of English prosody, moonlit. There, beside the cool waters, has often been translated into English, gives us yet another example of how it I would lay him down. If only.” Yideum but Rossi’s work avoids verbosity, is done. turns her glance on her specifically is less Latinate, and is better suited Korean milieu as well. An intriguing, illu- to Pizarnik’s minimalism, which then minating volume. requires the reader’s thought.

2020 ALTA Awards 13 —National Translation Award in Poetry Shortlist

Room in Rome Tell Me, Kenyalang The Winter Garden by Jorge Eduardo Eielson by Kulleh Grasi Photograph translated from Spanish by translated from Malay by Pauline Fan by Reina María Rodríguez David Shook (Circumference Books) translated from Spanish by (Cardboard House Press) Translator Pauline Fan, in collaboration Kristin Dykstra with Nancy Gates Some works don’t begin or end in with poet Kulleh Grasi, offers an Madsen (Ugly Duckling Presse) the dissolution of translation—which, English version of Tell Me, Kenyalang rather than being poetry’s unfortunate that complicates national categorizing Rodríguez’s poetry is both lyrical and devolution, is its origin and life force. schemes of world literature. Grasi investigative, captivating and thought- Finding their fingers already tingling intersperses verse written in Malay ful; it is interested in metaphysics, but to touch that loose weave, poets like with phrases of Kaya and Kelabit, also able to deliver philosophical ideas Jorge Eduardo Eielson can fling their just two of the languages spoken by in precise, elegant language. Dyks- attentions out across poems long or different ethnic and cultural groups tra and Gates Madsen have done an short, and return having woven the residing in the nation state of Malaysia. excellent job of bringing Rodríguez’s unexpected into the prosaic. David Allowing some Kaya and Kelabit to prosodic nuances into an English that Shook’s translation allows English read- remain untranslated, Fan and Grasi give is as fresh as it is delicate. This book, ers to notice how the knots in Eielson’s readers rich multilingual evocations perhaps more so than any other collec- weave gather dread, rage, linguistic of multiethnic storytelling, ceremonial tion published this year, captures the self-awareness, and, somehow, joy. songs, ritual incantations, and dream inner workings of the human mind. weaving. But this is no museum. Fan’s translation renders the pulse of a living poet’s contemporary, generative attention to contemporary, generative moments, offering us a text that is “[n]arrated, alive.”

2020 ALTA Awards 14 WHERE EVERY WORD MATTERS

the MFA in Literary Translation at BOSTON UNIVERSITY

APPLY BY FEBRUARY 15 for fall 2021 admission learn more today at www.bu.edu/translation/mfa

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“An important translation of a criminally neglected work of world literature, and an impressive literary work in its own right.” — Mada Masr

“One might describe al-Ḥarīrī’s twelfth-century Arabic classic as ‘Melville’s Confidence-Man meets Queneau’s Exercices de style,’ but in this remarkable Oulipean carnival of a translation by Michael Cooperson, there are so many other voices—and languages: Singlish, Spanglish, Shakespeare, middle management-speak, Harlem jive, the rogue’s lexicon, Naijá . . . Impostures is a wild romp through languages and literatures, places and times, that bears out and celebrates Borges’s dictum: ‘Erudition is the modern form of the fantastic.’” — Esther Allen, translator of Zama, winner of the 2017 National Translation Award

Available online or at your local bookstore WWW.LIBRARYOFARABICLITERATURE.ORG WWW.NYUPRESS.ORG WWW.COMBINEDACADEMIC.CO.UK (UK/EUROPE) Announcing the fifth annual Global Humanities Translation Prize

The Global Humanities Translation Prize seeks to encourage and recognize translations that strike a nuanced balance between scholarly rigor, aesthetic grace, and general read- ability, especially those that introduce a wider audience to:

•Underrepresented and experimental literary voices from marginalized communities •Humanistic scholarship in infrequently translated languages •Important classical texts in non-Western traditions and languages

Winners receive a cash award and publication from Northwestern University Press. The deadline to submit is January 15, 2021.

To learn more, visit https://bit.ly/2VVqXIY or contact [email protected].

Winner of the 2019 Global Humanities Translation Prize

The Beast, and Other Tales Jóusè d’Arbaud, translated from the Provençal by Joyce Zonana

“D’Arbaud’s La Bèstio dóu Vacarés is a tragic parable particularly well suited to this moment, when humans believe they dominate nature. Working from both the Provençal original and d’Arbaud’s own French translation, Zonana has captured in this collection the earthy, muscular flavor of an ancient language from a unique place and culture. This novella and the stories that accompany it hauntingly portray the erosion of a proud traditional way of life by the inevitable incursion of modernity.”

—Michele Levy, author of Anna’s Dance: A Balkan Odyssey International Literature from Open Letter and Dalkey Archive International Literature from Open Letter and Dalkey Archive

A Season in The Seagull the Congo Aim Csaire Library of Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak With an Introduction by French Souleymane Bachir Diagne is play recounts the tragic death of Patrice Lumumba, Literature the rst prime minister of the Congo Republic. It follows Lumumba’s e orts to free the Congolese from Belgian rule and the political struggles that led to his assassination in 1961. Paper 12.50 Tomb(e) Hlne Cixous Translated by Laurent Milesi “Cixous pierces into the nature of love and jealousy—an oeu- vre bound by the desire for a love that can never be, and yet, The Present Hour at the same time, looks upon ves Bonnefoy the memory of a love that has Translated and with an Introduction by been.”—Los Angeles Review of Beverley Bie Brahic Books “Bonnefoy is one of the rare Paper 14.50 contemporary authors for whom writing does not—or should not—conclude in utter despair, but rather in the tendering of hope.”—France Magazine Paper 10.50

Suspended Passion Marguerite Duras Translated by Chris Turner The Journey of a “ e interviews convey one Caribbean Writer of the key lessons of Duras’ Maryse Cond creative output, both in print Translated by Richard Philcox and lm: less is more.” —PopMatters “Condé’s stories are both Paper 12.50 historical and present, in the moment, murmuring secrets avored with a Caribbean language of swishing rhythms, sweet as nectar, and lyrical as the swooshing skirts of the Guadeloupean women.” —Quincey Troupe, author of Transcircularities Distributed by the University of Chicago Press Paper 14.50 www.press.uchicago.edu Tucson looks forward to welcoming ALTA to our beautiful city in 2021 and 2022.

Find out more at: VisitTucson.org

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Discover Writers Residencies at Write On, Door County Thank you for this truly invaluable week. “ Not only did I ﬁ nish my translation of Jag ringer mina broder (I Call My Brothers) but I was also able to make headway on inroads for publication of my translation. – Barbara L. Williams, translator and novelist” Focus on your next translation project away from it all. Located in the heart of Wisconsin’s northeast peninsula between Lake Michigan and the waters of Green Bay, Write On offers a peaceful and inspiring place for your creative work. We welcome applications from translators and other literary artists year-round. Apply today – please visit writeondoorcounty.org for details.

Write On, Door County 4210 Juddville Road • PO Box 457 • Fish Creek, WI 54212 920.868.1457 • writeondoorcounty.org