Announcing the 2022 ALTA Book Awards Shortlists

Announcing the 2022 ALTA Book Awards Shortlists

September 7, 2022—The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is delighted to announce the shortlists for the 2022 Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA), Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, the inaugural Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award (SUFTA), and the National Translation Awards (NTA) in Prose and Poetry!

The winners of these awards will be announced at ALTA’s annual awards ceremony, which in 2022 will be held virtually. The awards ceremony will air on October 6, 2022 on ALTA’s Eventbrite page; this event is free and open to the public.

See the shortlists below!

Starting in 2015, the Italian Prose in Translation Award (IPTA) recognizes the importance of contemporary Italian prose (fiction and literary non-fiction) and promotes the translation of Italian works into English. This prize is awarded annually to a translator of a recent work of Italian prose (fiction or literary non-fiction). The award-winning translator for 2022 will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

This year’s judges are Nerina Cocchi, Douglas Grant Heise, and Barbara Ofosu-Somuah. Follow this link to see what the judges had to say about each of the shortlisted titles.

The Book of All Books
By Roberto Calasso
Translated from Italian by Tim Parks
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Meeting in Positano
By Goliarda Sapienza
Translated from Italian by Brian Robert Moore
Other Press

Nives
By Sacha Naspini
Translated from Italian by Clarissa Botsford
Europa Editions

Penelope
By Silvana La Spina
Translated from Italian by Anna Chiafele and Lisa Pike
Bordighera Press

Self-Portrait
By Carla Lonzi
Translated from Italian by Allison Grimaldi Donahue
Divided Publishing

The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, which was inaugurated in 2009, recognizes the importance of Asian translation for international literature and promotes the translation of Asian works into English. The award-winning translator for 2022 will receive a $6,000 cash prize.

This year’s judges are Annelise Finegan, Soeun Seo, and Emily Jungmin Yoon. Follow this link to see what the judges had to say about each of the shortlisted titles.

Broad Sea and Empty Sky
By Xu Zhimo
Translated from Chinese by Dorothy Trench Bonett
Floating World Editions

Cold Candies
By Lee Young-ju
Translated from Korean by Jae Kim
Black Ocean

A Naturalist’s Manor
By Yan An
Translated from Chinese by Chen Du and Xisheng Chen
Chax Press

Ordinary People
By Tanikawa Shuntarō
Translated from Japanese by Takako Lento
Vagabond Press

The Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award (SUFTA), which was inaugurated in 2022, is offered by the American Literary Translators Association in conjunction with the Spain-USA Foundation. The award recognizes translations into English of literary prose works written originally by authors of Spanish (Spain) nationality. The award-winning translator for 2022 will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

This year’s judges are Peter Bush, Kevin Gerry Dunn, and Amaia Gabantxo. Follow this link to see what the judges had to say about each of the shortlisted titles.

Above the Rain
By Víctor del Árbol
Translated from Spanish by Lisa Dillman
Other Press

The Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí, Conquistador and Founder of New Catalonia
By Max Besora
Translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
Open Letter Books

Among the Hedges
By Sara Mesa
Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell
Open Letter Books

Cremation
By Rafael Chirbes
Translated from Spanish by Valerie Miles
New Directions

Memoirs of a Village Boy
By Xosé Neira Vilas
Translated from Galician by John Rutherford
Small Stations Press

The National Translation Awards, which are administered by ALTA, are the only national awards for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work. 2022 marks the twenty-fourth year for the NTA, and the eighth year to award separate prizes in poetry and prose. The award-winning translator for 2022 will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

This year’s prose judges are Suzanne Jill Levine, Arunava Sinha, and Annie Tucker. Follow this link to see what the judges had to say about each of the shortlisted titles.

Harsh Times
By Mario Vargas Llosa
Translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories
By Tadeusz Borowski
Translated from Polish by Madeline G. Levine
Yale University Press

In Case of Emergency
By Mahsa Mohebali
Translated from Persian/Farsi by Mariam Rahmani
The Feminist Press

More Than I Love My Life
By David Grossman
Translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen
Jonathan Cape

The Morning Star
By Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Penguin Press

The Wedding Party
By Liu Xinwu
Translated from Mandarin by Jeremy Tiang
Amazon Crossing

The National Translation Awards, which are administered by ALTA, are the only national awards for translated fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction that includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work. 2022 marks the twenty-fourth year for the NTA, and the eighth year to award separate prizes in poetry and prose. The award-winning translator for 2022 will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

This year’s poetry judges are Hélène Cardona, Boris Dralyuk, and Archana Venkatesan. Follow this link to see what the judges had to say about each of the shortlisted titles.

Black Earth: Selected Poems and Prose
By Osip Mandelstam
Translated from Russian by Peter France
New Directions

Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow
By Natalka Bilotserkivets
Translated from Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky
Lost Horse Press

Exhausted on the Cross
By Najwan Darwish
Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
NYRB Poets

Purgatorio
By Dante Alighieri
Translated from Italian by D. M. Black
NYRB Classics

Congratulations to all of the translators, authors, and publishers on these lists!