2015 National Translation Award Longlist in Poetry!

The American Literary Translators Association is pleased to announce the 12-title longlists for the 2015 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. Prose Longlist here!

This is the seventeenth year for the NTA, which is administered by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), and the first year to award separate prizes in poetry and prose. The NTA is the only national award for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of the source text and its relation to the finished English work.

Featuring authors writing in 11 different languages, from 12 countries, this year’s longlists expand the prize’s dedication to literary diversity in English.

Books eligible for this year’s award include titles published anywhere in the world in the previous calendar year (2014) that were translated into English. The selection criteria include both the quality of the finished English language book, and the quality of the translation.

This year’s judges for poetry are Lisa Rose Bradford, Stephen Kessler, and Diana Thow.

The winning translators will receive a $5,000 cash prize, and the award will be announced at ALTA’s annual conference, which will be held this year at the Marriott University Park in Tucson AZ from Oct. 28-31, 2015.

The 5-title shortlists will be announced in September. In the meantime, ALTA will highlight each book on the longlist with features written by the judges, on the ALTA blog.

The 2015 NTA Longlist in Poetry
(in alphabetical order by author):

The Absolute Is A Round Die
by Jose Acquelin (Canada)
Translated from the French by Hugh Hazelton
(Guernica Editions)

Amnesia of the Movement of Clouds & Of Red and Black Verse
by Maria Attanasio (Italy)
Translated from the Italian by Carla Billitteri
(Litmus Press)

Breathturn into Timestead
by Paul Celan (Romania)
Translated from the German by Pierre Joris
(Farrar Straus and Giroux)

Nothing More to Lose
by Najwan Darwish (Palestine)
Translated from the Arabic by Karreem James Abu-Zeid
(New York Review Books)

Lazy Suzie
by Suzanne Doppelt (France)
Translated from the French by Cole Swensen
(Litmus Press)

Guarding the Air: Selected Poems of Gunnar Harding
by Gunnar Harding (Sweden)
Translated from the Swedish by Roger Greenwald
(Black Widow Press)

Poems of Osip Mandelstam
by Osip Mandelstam (Russia)
Translated from the Russian by Peter France
(New Directions)

Wallless Space
by Ernst Meister (Germany)
Translated from the German by Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick
(Wave Books)

Elsewhere on Earth
by Emmanuel Merle (France)
Translated from the French by Peter Brown
(Guernica Editions)

The Offense of Love: Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, and Tristia II
by Ovid (Rome)
Translated from the Latin by Julia Dyson Hejduk
(University of Wisconsin Press)

In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner
by Tuvia Ruebner (Slovakia)
Translated from the Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back
(University of Pittsburgh Press)