The National Translation Award is awarded annually in poetry and in prose to literary translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality. Established in 1998, the NTA is the only prize for a work of literary translation into English to include an evaluation of the source language text. 2018 is the fourth year in which the NTA is awarded separately in poetry and prose. Submissions for the National Translation Award in Prose are being accepted until April 16, 2018.
We are honored to present this year’s judges, Esther Allen, Tess Lewis, and Jeremy Tiang. Learn about them below:
Esther Allen is a Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and Baruch College, CUNY. She has twice been awarded Translation Fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and was named a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government. She has been a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and at the Leon Levy Center for Biography. Her most recent translation, Antonio Di Benedetto’s Zama (New York Review Books Classics), won the 2017 National Translation Award. To read her work, visit estherallen.com.
Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German and Co-chair of the PEN Translation Committee. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Maja Haderlap, and Philippe Jaccottet. She has won a number of awards including the 2015 ACFNY Translation Prize, a PEN Translation Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is also an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and writes essays on European Literature for a number of journals and newspapers including The Hudson Review, World Literature Today, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, and Bookforum. www.tesslewis.org
Jeremy Tiang is the translator (from Chinese) of novelists Zhang Yueran, Yeng Pway Ngon, Tianxia Bachang etc. and playwrights Wei Yu-Chia, Xu Nuo, Han Lao Da etc, as well as the recipient of a PEN/ Heim Grant, an NEA Literary Translation Fellowship, a Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship, and a People’s Literature Award Mao-Tai Cup. He is also a playwright and fiction writer; his novel State of Emergency was published by Epigram Books in 2017. www.JeremyTiang.com
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