The winners of the AAUS award are announced

Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) Translation Award for their translation of The Voices Of Babyn Yar by Marianna Kiyanovska (Harvard University Press, 2022). This was reported on the Facebook page by one of the jury members, Dzvinia Orlowsky.

“Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky’s translations are English-language poems in their own right. Their translations read grounded and authentic; the language is textured and fine-tuned. Of significance is this collection’s contribution to the multi-faceted voices – or “transmissions” as specified by the translators in their preface – of origin which bear witness. Add to that their haunting, evocative power and the general importance of the subject matter makes for an excellent choice,” the jury justified its choice.

Maksymchuk and Rosochinsky’s translation was recognized as the best Ukrainian-English book translation among books published between 2021 and 2022. Patrick John Corness was awarded an honorable mention in 2023 for his translation of Lesia Ukrainka’s The Song of the Forest (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 2021).

In addition, Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky received an honorable mention at the AAUS Award for books published in 2020 and 2021 for their translation of the poetry collection Apricots of Donbas by Lyuba Yakimchuk.

The jury of the prize included:

• Dzvinia Orlowsky, poet, translator, winner of the 2021 AAUS Translation Prize for her English translation of Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Natalka Bilotserkivets;
• Ali Kinsella, winner of the 2021 AAUS Translation Prize for her English translation of Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Natalka Bilotserkivets;
• Olga Livshyn, poet and translator.

The American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) is a registered non-profit educational organization founded in 1989 and dedicated to furthering knowledge about Ukraine, popularizing Ukrainian studies, providing career-building resources to its members, and making the intellectual resources of the organization available to the media and general public.

The AAUS membership includes scholars and students primarily from the United States and Canada, although there are also European and international members, as well as members from Ukraine.  AAUS is the American affiliate of the International Association for Ukrainian Studies (IAUS, or MAU in Ukrainian), and is also an affiliate of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN).

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Image books.huri.harvard.edu