Please find below the winners of the 2023 John Dryden Translation Competition. With many thanks to everyone who entered!
The John Dryden Translation Competition is sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association and the British Centre for Literary Translation. Prizes are awarded for the best unpublished literary translations from any language into English. The competition is currently hosted by the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds. Entries for the 2024 competition (deadline Monday 5 February 2024) will be accepted from November 2023 onwards. Click here to enter.
First Prize:
Antonella Lettieri
for The War of the Murazzi translated from Enrico Remmert’s Italian text La guerra dei Murazzi.
Second Prize:
Naomi Mottram
for her translation from Sofia Sinitskaia’s Russian text Mitrofanushka Durasov.
Third Prize:
David McCallam
for “No Words but Word-Dough” and “The Feeling” translated from Christophe Tarkos’s French text ‘Il y a pâte-mot’ and ‘Le sentiment’.
Highly Commended (in no particular order):
Maren Baudet-Lackner for The Aquatics translated from Osvalde Lewat’s French text Les Aquatiques.
Katharine Halls for Blind Hope translated from Haytham El-Wardany’s Arabic text (ما لا يمكن إصلاحه.).
Henry Lambert for The Day of a Dreamer translated from Copi’s French text La Journée d’une rêveuse
The shortlist also included (in no particular order):
Lilian Huang for Moonfish translated from Shion Miura’s Japanese text Moonfish.
Siân Valvis for I’ll Cut Off Your Braids translated from Dimosthenis Papamarkos’s Greek text Gkiak
Margaret Taylor for “Dream of Paradise”, “Autumn Leaves”, and “In Summer and Winter” translated from Charles Baudelaire and Jacques Prévert’s French texts “L’invitation au voyage”, “Les feuilles mortes”, and “En été comme en hiver”.
The Longlist also included (in no particular order):
Elmira Louie for The Return translated from Goli Taraghi’s Persian text بازگشت.
Edward Mulholland for Davidiad Book XIV translated from the Latin text Davidias Liber XIV.
Salma Harland for Spartacus’ Last Words translated from Amal Dunqul’s Arabic text كلمات سبارتكوس الأخيرة.
Bob Knowles for Cut Off – With Nothing but an Old Spyglass translated from Eça de Queiroz’s Portuguese text A Relíquia.
Astrid Treherne for The Story of My Assessment at The Beginning of The Third Millenium translated from Peter Licht’s German text Die Geschichte meiner Einschätzung am Anfang des dritten Jahrtausends.
Paul Kaye for The Book of Litter translated from Stanisław Łubieński’s Polish text Książka o śmieciach.
Rob Myatt for Burn Down the House, Water the Tree translated from Hans-Peter Madsen’s Danish text Brænd Huset Ned, Giv Træet Vand.
Patrick Wainwright for Daddy translated from Peter Schneider’s German text Vati.
Alice Guthrie for The Book of Despair or, Final Observations that are No Use to Anyone translated from Hisham Bustani’s Arabic text (كتاب اليأس، أو: ملاحظاتٌ أخيرةٌ لن تفيد أحدًا).
Andrew Hodges for Birmingham translated from Kristina Gavran’s Serbo-Croatian text Izmedju.
Charlotte Coombe for You’re Very Quiet Today translated from Ana Navajas’s Spanish text Estás muy callada hoy.
Genevieve Hill-Kaminishi for One Ticket translated from Edogawa Rampo’s Japanese text 一枚の切符 [Ichimai no kippu].
Georgina Fooks for Yugoslavia translated from Víctor Hugo Ortega’s Spanish text Yugoslavia.
Jennifer Busch and Isabel Hagedorn for Robbie, Tobbie and the Flywatoot translated from Boy Lornsen’s German text Robbie, Tobbie und das Fliewatüüt.
Joe Wright for Here Comes Taison translated from Masanori Morita’s Japanese text (Rokudenashi BLUES) ろくでなしBLUES.
Katherine Van de Vate for Cactus Girls translated from Karima Ahdad’s Arabic text (بنات الصبار) Banat al-Sabbar.
Kotryna Garanasvili for GREEN translated from Marius Ivaškevičius’s Lithuanian text ŽALI.
Lida Amiri for Spring in Balkh and Hope-less translated from Râbe’a Balkhi and Nâdiâ Anjuman’s Persian texts بهار بلخ and (عبث).
Lucy Moffatt for A Practical Person translated from Kjersti Rorgemoen’s Nynorsk Norwegian text Eit praktisk menneske.
Maya Feile Tomes for Wacky Races translated from César Sánchez’s Spanish text Maldito pego pulgoso.
Meg Challis for Pseudolus translated from Plautus’s Latin text Pseudolus.
Melissa Schmidt for “I Saw”, “Father”, and “We Are Myriad” translated from Amir Hossein Khoshnevisan, Kamyar Zahmatkesh, and Donya Zahmatkesh’s Persian texts “دیدم”, “پدر رفت”, and “ما بیشماریم“.
Paul Castro for Miss Suzette and I translated from Ilse Losa’s Portuguese text Miss Suzette e Eu.
Sylvia Franke for Kulp and How He Became a Case translated from Ulrike Damm’s German text Kulp und warum er zum Fall wurde, and Three Kilometers translated from Nadine Schneider’s German text Drei Kilometer.
Thea Petrou for Our Dear Old Lady Author and The Museum of Contradictions translated from Anne Serre and Antoine Wauters’s French texts Notre si chère vieille dame auteur and Le musée des contradictions.
Thila Varghese for Somewhere It Is Three O’clock Right Now translated from Appadurai Muttulingam’s Tamil text Engeyo ippa moondru maNi – எங்கேய இப்ப மூன்று மணி.
Zoe McNamee for Play Boy translated from Constance Debré’s French text Play Boy.
Learn More.
To learn more about the John Dryden Translation Competition, enter the 2024 competition and view past winners, please visit our John Dryden Translation Competition page here.
