The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2017

The 2017 shortlist included eight books from an outstanding entry of 127 titles in translations from 26 different languages. Once again we had impressive submissions from both larger and smaller publishing houses: Faber & Faber, Pushkin Press, Comma Press, Angel Classics, MacLehose Press, Penguin Random House, Oneworld, and Bloomsbury. The shortlist contained translations from six languages. 

The winner was announced at the prizegiving and dinner at St Anne’s College, Oxford on Saturday 3 June. This was the crowning event of Oxford Translation Day, which boasted a varied programme of talks, workshops and readings. Details are available at http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/oxford-translation-day-2017.

This year’s judges of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize were the academics and writers Eleni Philippou, Adriana X. Jacobs, Sian Gronlie, and Patrick McGuinness (Chair).

The 2017 shortlist:

Ben Faccini for Lydie Salvayre’s Cry, Mother Spain (MacLehose)

Philip Ó Ceallaigh for Mihail Sebastian’s For Two Thousand Years (Penguin Classics)

Natasha Wimmer for Álvaro Enrigue’s Sudden Death (Harvill Secker)

Frank Perry for Lina Wolff’s Bret Easton Ellis and The Other Dogs (And Other Stories)

Lisa Dillman for Yuri Herrera’s The Transmigration of Bodies (And Other Stories)

Lisa C Hayden for Vadim Levental’s Masha Regina (Oneworld)

Rawley Grau for Dušan Šarotar’s Panorama (Peter Owen World Series/Istros Books)

Arthur Goldhammer for Stéphane Heuet’s adaptation of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way (Gallic)

Frank Perry won the 2017 Prize for his excellent translation of Lina Wolff's Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs (And Other Stories). 

The judges said: 

“Although Swedish literature in translation tends to be dominated by crime thrillers, Lina Wolff’s debut novel, in Frank Perry’s marvellous translation, is proof that it has a lot more to offer the foreign reader. And yet, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a riddle or mystery at the heart of this book. The voice of our narrator Araceli Villalobos, a young woman living in a small Spanish town, pulled us in and didn’t let us go.”

Enquiries about the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize should be directed to the Prize administrator, Dr Eleni Philippou, at Comparative.Criticism@st-annes.ox.ac.uk.