Shortlist of nominees for the 2025 Drahomán Prize announced

The Drahomán Prize, an award for translators of books from Ukrainian into other languages, has announced the shortlist of nominees for 2025.

The finalists of the award are:

• Alessandro Achilli and Yaryna Grusha with a translation into Italian of Iryna Shuvalova’s poetry collection “Endsongs”
• Nina Murray with the English translation of Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic poem “Cassandra”
• Nils Håkanson with the Swedish translation of Sofia Andrukhovych’s novel “Amadoka”

The Special Award from the Chapter for a profound contribution to building a shared context between two distant cultures will be awarded to Mridula Ghosh, a translator of Ukrainian into Bengali.

The 2025 Prize Jury included: 

• Volodymyr Yermolenko, writer, journalist, philosopher, and President of PEN Ukraine;
• Yaroslava Strikha, translator and literary scholar;
• Katarzyna Kotyńska, translator and laureate of the 2023 Drahomán Prize;
• Volodymyr Sheiko, Director General of the Ukrainian Institute;
• Oleksandra Koval, Director of the Ukrainian Book Institute;
• Alla Tatarenko, translator and professor at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv;
• Rory Finnin, American Ukrainian studies scholar and Head of the Ukrainian Studies Program at the University of Cambridge;
• Iryna Zabiaka, translator and literary scholar;
• Sofiia Onufriv, translator and cultural project manager. 

The award ceremony of the Drahomán Prize 2025 will take place on April 23, 2026. The winner will receive a statuette by Ukrainian artist Anna Zvyagintseva, a cash prize of EUR 3,000, provided by the ЗMIN Foundation with the support of the Cultural Diplomacy Foundation, as well as additional opportunities for professional development and promotion of their work.

The Drahomán Prize was launched in 2020 by the Ukrainian Institute, PEN Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Book Institute to support and acknowledge translators, who translate from Ukrainian into other world languages. It is awarded for its excellence in translation and contribution to the promotion of Ukrainian literature abroad.

The 2024 Drahomán Prize, honoring excellence in translation and the promotion of Ukrainian literature abroad, has been awarded to Finnish translator Eero Balk.

As reported earlier, the 2021 Drahomán Prize laureate was the Polish translator Bohdan Zadura. In 2022, the prize was awarded to Iryna Dmytryshyn. In 2023, it went to Katarzyna Kotyńska.

Main image: Award website