Peterson Literary Fund awards the best translated books to understand Ukraine

13.12.2023

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At the Translated Book Awards 2023 Ceremony on Dec. 9, the Peterson Literary Fund announced five winners in the published book category and recognized 10 ongoing translations with grants. The event, featuring Anne Applebaum, marked a deviation from the award’s usual focus on translations into English, French and Ukrainian.

The Grand Prix for Excellence in Translation was awarded to the Turkish edition of “Ukraine: An Illustrated History” by Robert Magocsi, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, published by VakifBank Kültür Yayinlari Publishing. The award, honoring both the author and the translator, includes a $15,000 CAD prize.

“The Grand Prix is awarded in acknowledgment of the significance of making Robert Magocsi’s comprehensive history of Ukraine accessible to a Turkish-speaking audience through its expertly translated edition,” the Jury’s rationale states.

The full list of the winners includes:

Ukraine: An Illustrated History (Grand-Prix)
Paul Robert Magocsi – Author
Maryna Kravets, Victor Ostapchuk, Murat Yaşar – Translators
VakifBank Kültür Yayinlari (Türkiye) – Publisher

The Voices of Babyn Yar
Marianna Kiyanovska – Author
Oksana Maksymchuk, Max Rosochinsky – Translators

The Torture Camp on Paradise Street
Stanislav Aseyev – Author
Zenia Tompkins, Nina Murray – Translators

Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love
Volodymyr Rafeyenko – author
Mark Andryczyk – Translator

The Extraordinary Lives of Ukrainian Canadian Women
Iroida Wynnyckyj – Editor
Marta Olynyk – Translator

Of the five winning books, three are published by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (USA), including “The Extraordinary Lives of Ukrainian Canadian Women” by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press (Canada). Each Translated Book Award carries a value of $10,000 Canadian dollars, with the translator and author each receiving $5,000 CAD.

The Peterson Literary Fund also provides financial support to translations in progress. This grant aims to facilitate the completion of projects by offering translators the necessary resources. It encourages translators to embark on projects that might have been unfeasible without such support. This year, the Peterson Literary Fund Translations-in-Progress Grant will support ten literary projects.

Vortex: Vasyl Stus’ Selected Early Poetry
Author: Vasyl Stus
Translators: Bohdan Tokarsky, Nina Murray

The Ukrainian Intelligentsia and Genocide: The Struggle for History, Language, and Culture in the 1920s and 1930s
Author: Viktoria A. Malko
Translator: Viktoria A. Malko

Ukraine, the Middle East, and the West
Author: Thomas Prymak
Translator: Nadia Zavorotna

Solomea: Star of Opera’s Golden Age
Author: Andriy Semotiuk
Translator: Halyna Stashkiw

The Shore of Expectations: A Cultural Study of the Shistdesiatnyky
Author: Simone Attilio Bellezza
Translator: Marharyta Yehorchenko

The Mobilized
Author: Vlad Yakushev
Translator: Fr Jeffrey D. Stephaniuk

Dr. Leonardo’s Journey to Sloboda Switzerland with his Future Lover, the Beautiful Alcesta
Author: Maik Yohansen
Translator: Uilleam Blacker

Dom’s Dream Kingdom
Author: Victoria Amelina
Translator: Grace Mahoney

La dernière volonté du bourreau
Author: Eugenia Kononenko
Translators: Rostyslav Nyemtsev, Felicia Mihali

Darlings of Justice
Author: Yuri Andrukhovych
Translator: Vitaly Chernetsky

The value of the translation grants range from $2,000 CAD to $10,000 CAD, which is determined by the length and complexity, subject matter and category of literary work being translated.

The Peterson Literary Fund Translated Book Award is presented biennially since 2021. This Award recognizes the best recently published translated books of non-fiction or fiction. The award is given to books translated into Ukrainian from another language or translated from Ukrainian into another language. Submissions are encouraged for books translated to Ukrainian from English or French and vice-versa, namely, from Ukrainian into English or French.

The Fund has also announced the call for submissions for Peterson Literary Prize, the international book prize recognizing original works of nonfiction written in English or Ukrainian. The submission period is Friday, March 1 – Sunday, March 31.