national book awards translated literature longlist feature
In Translation

Announcing the 2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature Longlist

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Pierce Alquist

Senior Contributor

Pierce Alquist is a transplanted New Yorker living and working in the publishing scene in Boston. Don’t worry if she fooled you, the red hair is misleading. She’s a literature in translation devotee and reviewer and lover of small, independent presses. A voracious traveler and foodie, you can find her in her kitchen making borscht or covered in red pepper paste as she perfects her kimchi recipe.

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The National Book Foundation announced the 2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature longlist. It is the first time this award in its current iteration will be given (there was a previous translation award years ago). This prize, which represents a permanent fifth National Book Award category, was announced earlier this year and will honor a work of fiction or nonfiction that has been translated into English and published in the U.S.

Announcing the 2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature Longlist

2018 National Book Awards Translated Literature Longlist

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi, translated by Tina Kover

Comemadre by Roque Larraquy, translated by Heather Cleary

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Max Weiss and Dunya Mikhail

One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Love by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

Wait, Blink: A Perfect Picture of Inner Life by Gunnhild Øyehaug, translated by Kari Dickson

Trick by Domenico Starnone, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

Aetherial Worlds by Tatyana Tolstaya, translated by Anya Migdal

The shortlist will be announced October 10th. The 69th National Book Awards Ceremony will be held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Wednesday, November 14, and will also be live-streamed online in its entirety. The $10,000 prize will be split evenly between the winning author and translator.

“The judges for the category this year are Harold Augenbraum, the acting editor of The Yale Review and the former executive director of the National Book Foundation; Karen Maeda Allman, the author-events co-coordinator at the Elliott Bay Book Company, in Seattle; Sinan Antoon, a poet, novelist, and translator; Susan Bernofsky, who directs the literary translation program at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and Álvaro Enrigue, whose most recent novel is Sudden Death.”

Are any of your favorite books in translation on this list? Are there any you think are missing?

Here’s the 2018 National Book Awards Young People’s Literature Longlist. Stay tuned for more announcements on longlists for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction!