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Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize
The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance. It was founded by Lord Weidenfeld and funded by New College, The Queen’s College and St Anne’s College, Oxford.
The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2020

The winner of this year’s Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize is David Hackston for his translation of Pajtim Statovci’s Crossing (Pushkin Press). This was announced on 30 September – International Translation Day – during an online ceremony hosted by English PEN. Read the judges’ citations about the individual translations here.

To accompany the award of the Prize, St Anne’s and Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) have uploaded a number of videos in which the shortlisted translators discuss or read from their respective translations. 

Shortlist 2020

Submissions for the 2020 prize were open from 1 December 2019 until 31 January 2020. The following were shortlisted:

Michális Ganás, A Greek Ballad (Yale UP), translated from the Greek by David Connolly and Joshua Barley

Pajtim Statovci, Crossing (Pushkin Press), translated from the Finnish by David Hackston

Mahir Guven, Older Brother (Europa), translated from the French by Tina Kover

Tatyana Tolstaya, Aetherial Worlds (Daunt Books), translated from the Russian by Anya Migdal

Multatuli, Max Havelaar (New York Review Books), translated from the Dutch by Ina Rilke and David McKay

Dušan Šarotar, Billiards at the Hotel Dobray (Istros Books), translated from the Slovene by Rawley Grau

Dina Salústio, The Madwoman of Serrano (Dedalus), translated from the Portuguese by Jethro Soutar

Birgit Vanderbeke, You Would Have Missed Me (Peirene Press), translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

This year’s judges were Patrick McGuinness, Marta Arnaldi, Karolina Watroba, and Simon Park (Chair).

Please see 'How to Enter' for the prize's eligibility criteria and submission details.

Oxford Translation Day

This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oxford Translation Day - a celebration of literary translation consisting of workshops, readings, and talks which is usually hosted by St Anne's College and Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) - has taken place instead as online sessions over a series of weeks. Recordings of some of the Oxford Translation Day events are available on the OCCT website.

Enquiries

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.

Previous winners

1999: Jonathan Galassi for his translation of Eugenio Montale's Collected Poems (Carcanet)
2000: Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of José Saramago's All the Names (Harvill)
2001: Edwin Morgan for his translation of Phèdre by Jean Racine (Carcanet) into Scots
2002: Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Banffy-Jelen for Miklós Bánffy's They Were Divided (Arcadia)
2003: Ciaran Carson for his translation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Granta)
2004: Michael Hofmann for his translation of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel (Penguin)
2005: Denis Jackson for his translation of Theodor Storm's Paul the Puppeteer (Angel Books)
2006: Len Rix for his translation of Magda Szabó's The Door (Harvill Secker)
2007: Michael Hofmann for his translation of Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems (Faber)
2008: Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of Eça de Queiroz's The Maias (Dedalus)
2009: Anthea Bell for her translation of Saša Stanišić's How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
2010: Jamie McKendrick for his translation of Valerio Magrelli's The Embrace: Selected Poems (Faber and Faber)
2011: Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of José Saramago's The Elephant's Journey (Harvill Secker)
2012: Judith Landry for her translation of Diego Marani's New Finnish Grammar
2013: Philip Boehm for his translation of Herta Müller's The Hunger Angel (Portobello)
2014: Susan Wicks for her translation of Valérie Rouzeau's Talking Vrouz
2015: Susan Bernofsky for her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days
2016: Joint Winners: Paul Vincent and John Irons for their translation of 100 Dutch-Language Poems (Holland Park Press) & Philip Roughton for his translation of Jón Kalman Stefánsson's The Heart of Man (MacLehose Press)
2017: Frank Perry for his translation of Lina Wolff's Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs (And Other Stories)
2018: Lisa Dillman for her translation of Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba (Portobello Books)
2019: Celia Hawkesworth for her translation of Ivo Andrić, Omer Pasha Latas (New York Review Books)

‘Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.’ (Milan Kundera)

‘Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.’ (Anthony Burgess)
Oxford Translation Day 2020 programmeOxford-Weidenfeld Prize - How to enter About the Oxford-Weidenfeld PrizeJudges' citations (2020)