English PEN’s flagship grant programme PEN Translates awards 16 titles from 11 regions and 10 languages, including:
–Two awards for titles which were projects supported through English PEN’s grant for sample translations, PEN Presents.
–The first time English PEN has awarded titles translated from Greenlandic and Kannada.
–The first time English PEN has awarded titles from Cameroon and Singapore.
Books from 11 regions and 10 languages have won English PEN’s flagship translation awards. The titles include novels, short story collections, non-fiction, poetry, prose drama, YA, and – for the first time – books from Cameroon and Singapore, and works translated from Greenlandic and Kannada. Two titles translated from Vietnamese appear in the same list for the first time, as does a book featuring translation from Mixe. The awards go to titles from 15 different publishers.
Two of the books awarded – a collection of short stories by Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, and The Aquatics by Osvalde Lewat, translated from the French by Maren Baudet-Lackner – were projects supported through English PEN’s grant for sample translations, PEN Presents, and subsequently acquired by And Other Stories and Cassava Republic Press.
PEN Translates award winners:
This Mouth Is Mine by Yásnaya Elena A. Gil (Mexico), translated from the Spanish and Mixe by Ellen Jones (Charco Press).
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexico), translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches (Scribe UK).
Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan (Singapore), translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (Tilted Axis Press).
The Weasel and the Whore by Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas (Cuba), translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue (Héloïse Press).
The Congress of the Disappeared by Bernardo Kucinski (Brazil), translated from the Portuguese by Tom Gatehouse (Latin America Bureau).
A Man with No Title by Xavier Le Clerc (France), translated from the French by William Rodarmor (Saqi Books).
The Aquatics by Osvalde Lewat (Cameroon), translated from the French by Maren Baudet-Lackner (Cassava Republic Press).
On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis (Egypt/UK), translated from the Arabic by Katharine Halls (Peirene Press).
Short stories by Banu Mushtaq (India), translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories).
Water: A Chronicle by Ngọc Tư Nguyễn (Vietnam), translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyễn An Lý (Major Books).
The Wild Ones by Antonio Ramos Revillas (Mexico), translated from the Spanish by Claire Storey (HopeRoad).
Jellyfish Have No Ears by Adèle Rosenfeld (France), translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman (MacLehose Press).
Samahani by Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin (Sudan/Austria), translated from the Arabic by Mayada Ibrahim and Adil Ibrahim Babikir (Foundry Editions).
Zombieland by Sørine Steenholdt (Greenland), translated from the Greenlandic by Charlotte Barslund (Norvik Press).
Elevator In Saigon by Thuận (Vietnam/France), translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyễn An Lý (Tilted Axis Press).
Iran + 100 by various authors, translated from the Farsi by various translators (Comma Press).
PEN Translates has now supported 376 books translated from over 90 languages, awarding over £1.2m in grants. 19 PEN Translates-supported books have appeared on International Booker Prize longlists. The PEN Translates-supported Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti (Daunt Books), recently won the 2024 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize. Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia, translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry (Charco Press) – also a PEN Translates award winner – won the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize.
Will Forrester, Head of Literature Programmes at English PEN, said:
These 16 awards are selected from our largest round of submissions to date. The breadth, boldness, originality, risk-taking, spirit and quality exhibited across the submissions and award-winners is staggering – and speaks to the thriving state of translated literature publishing. We’re pleased to be a part of bringing these works to English-language readers, and to be able to support these exceptional writers, translators and publishers.
So Mayer, English PEN Translation Advisory Co-chair, said:
This round of PEN Translates marks – and is marked by – powerful regional and transnational interconnections. We have five Spanish titles speaking compellingly for the linguistic, cultural and social diversity surging from Central and Latin America; new queer writing in French from Algerian and Cameroonian novelists; two highly mobile Vietnamese feminist mysteries; Arabic fiction from an Egyptian writer living in East London and a Black Sudanese writer living in Austria; the intricacies of language from a d/Deaf perspective; the sensory world of food as experienced by Malayan Communists at war; and two stunning celebrations of the art of the short story in Farsi and Kannada. They showcase the continued invention and ambition of independent publishers and translators, and how the most vivacious and essential current writing is both formally inventive and expansively committed to solidarity.
One title in this portfolio – a collection of short stories by Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi and published by And Other Stories – is supported through a ringfenced fund for Indian literature in translation in partnership with the British Council. This partnership was established as part of the UK/India Together Season of Culture, and included the inaugural round of PEN Presents in 2022, of which Mushtaq and Bhasthi were winners.
Rachel Stevens, Director Literature at British Council, said:
We are thrilled that Banu Mushtaq’s collection of short stories is among this excellent line up of texts to have been supported through this edition of PEN Translates. We are hugely proud to have supported this work previously through the Indian edition of PEN Presents, demonstrating the importance of funding sample translations, selected by the translators, in creating platforms for new and challenging work from underrepresented languages to English-language readers.
Books are selected for PEN Translates awards on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to UK bibliodiversity. PEN Translates is supported by Arts Council England.