Another Triumph for Indian Literature in Translation: Three Writers have been Named to the Longlist of a Major American Award.

Discover the 2023 National Translation Awards longlist, featuring Indian-language translations competing for a prestigious $4,000 prize.

on Sep 07, 2023

Another Triumph for Indian Literature in Translation: Three Writers have been Named to the Longlist of a Major American Award | Frontlist

The American Literary Translators Association's National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose 2023 include a $4,000 cash award.

Three Indian-language translations, from Malayalam, Tamil, and Bengali, have been nominated for one of the most prestigious American honours for translation of English literature.

The book-length works are on the longlist for the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose 2023 (awarded by The American Literary Translators Association), which are now in their 25th year.

The total number of languages and presses on the list is 19. The shortlist will be released on October 11, and the winner will be announced on November 11, with a $4,000 cash award for the winning translators in both categories — prose and poetry.

Shahidul Zahir's Life and Political Reality (Rs 399, HarperCollins) is the first book, translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahrin. It is a collection of two stories inspired by the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

According to the jury remark, the titular narrative "warns us how yesterday's banished collaborators can return as tomorrow's powerful" through "granular neighbourhood portraiture, at turns harrowing and humorous."

The second book is Valli by Sheela Tomy (Rs 699, HarperCollins), which was translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil. It is about the generations-long invasion of Kerala's Adivasi community in the Western Ghats, which resulted in exploitation, extermination, and uprisings.

"Exploratory in form — encompassing letters, folk songs, and poems, among other things — the story is as much about a family and the inhabitants of Kalluvayal as it is about the nearby ancient trees, flora, and swift-flowing Kabani river," the jury notes.

Priyamvada's translation of Jeyamohan's Stories of the True (Rs 799, Juggernaut) is the third volume. It's a compilation of short stories about people who face everyday oppressions before biting back - hard.

"From tending to animals in the forest to begging a publisher for payment that is rightfully due, [its] scenes are electric in nature and cinematic in feel, engraving a lasting impression on the reader," according to a jury comment.

Natascha Bruce, Shelley Frisch, Jason Grunebaum, Sawad Hussain, and Lytton Smith are this year's prose judges.

Pauline Fan, Heather Green, and Shook are this year's poetry judges.

The award has already been awarded by an Indian writer, Tejaswini Niranjana, in 2021 for her Kannada-to-English translation of Jayant Kaikini's No Presents Please.