The Sydney PEN Translation Program

“Left to itself, every literature will exhaust its vitality if it is not refreshed by the interest and contributions of a foreign one.”

– Goethe, as quoted in the forthcoming International PEN report, Translation and Globalization

2009 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize & PEN Medallion

The biennial New South Wales Premier’s Translation Prize ($30,000) with accompanying PEN Medallion is offered to Australian translators who translate literary works into English from other languages. The work can include poetry, stage and radio plays, and fiction and non-fiction works of literary merit. The prize recognises the vital role literary translators play in enabling writers and readers to communicate across cultures and in ensuring that dissident voices are heard around the world. Previous winners of the NSW Premier's Translation Prize and PEN Medallion include Mabel Lee, Julie Rose, Chris Andrews and John Nieuwenhuizen.

The 2009 winner is David Colmer for his translations from the Dutch
David Colmer was born in Adelaide in 1960. He studied medicine but left after a few years to travel. In the early nineties he moved to Amsterdam, where he learnt Dutch and became a literary translator. He translates poetry, novels, plays and children’s literature and has published more than twenty book-length translations. He has twice won the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize. Besides translating, he also writes and has published short stories in literary magazines in Australia and Europe. A novel and a short story collection have been published in the Netherlands in Dutch translation.

The judges for the 2009 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize were Mabel Lee (chair), Barbara McGilvray and Jeanne Ryckmans.

Julie Rose: the Art of Translation

Friday May 15, 6.30 for 7pm
gleebooks, 49 Glebe Pt. Rd., Glebe
Presented by AALITRA (Australian Association for Literary Translation), Sydney PEN and gleebooks
Julie Rose in conversation with Evelyn Juers, with an introduction by Brian Nelson

In this special event translator Julie Rose will be speaking about her work with Evelyn Juers,  an Australian art and literary critic, biographer and a publisher, and author of the recently published (the collective biography) House of Exile. This event will be of interest to anyone who enjoys international literature and wants to know more about the art of translation.
   Julie Rose is a world-renowned translator of major French thinkers such as Paul Virilio. Her most recent work includes a new translation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (New York, London: Random House, 2008), Catherine Rey's Stepping Out (Sydney: Giramondo, 2008) and Letter to D. by André Gorz (Sydney: HarperCollins, 2008; New York, Cambridge: Polity, 2009).
   A full-time freelance translator, Julie lives in her hometown of Sydney with her husband, dog and two cats. After years of enjoying a fine 'international reputation', she is now being published in Australia.

Reviews of her translation of Les Misérables:
- This new translation marvelously removes the yellowed varnish from Hugo's prose and gives us the racy, breathless and passionate intelligence of the original - Adam Gopnik
- Rich and gorgeous. This is the one to read - Jeanette Winterson
- Here, at long last, is a new translation... of Hugo's behemoth classic that is as racy and current and utterly arresting as it should be - The Buffalo News
- This is a lively, dramatic and wonderfully readable translation of one of the greatest 19th century novel - Alison Lurie
- A triumph - Brian Nelson

Brian Nelson is Professor of French Studies at Monash University, Editor of the /Australian Journal of French Studies/, and President of AALITRA (the Australian Association for Literary Translation). He is himself a practising translator, having translated several novels by Emile Zola for Oxford World's Classics.

Cost: $10/$7 concession and PEN & AALITRA members
Bookings: gleebooks 9660 2333 or www.gleebooks.com.au/events

2009 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize

This prize is offered biennially to Australian translators who translate literary works into English from other languages. The work can include poetry, stage and radio plays, and fiction and non-fiction works of literary merit. The prize is not made for the subtitling of films or television programs or for the translation of a single work. Applicants must show evidence of a body of literary translation which has been published or performed in recent years.
    The biennial New South Wales Premier’s Translation Prize ($30,000) with accompanying PEN Medallion will be awarded again in 2009. The prize was proposed by the International PEN Sydney Centre and is funded alternately by Arts NSW and the Community Relations Commission For a multicultural NSW.
    The prize recognises the vital role literary translators play in enabling writers and readers to communicate across cultures and in ensuring that dissident voices are heard around the world. It is offered only to Australian translators who translate works into English from other languages.
    The closing date for nominations for the 2009 Translation Prize is 5 December 2008. For full details and nomination forms for this prize please contact:
Literature and History Program Staff on (02) 9228 5533 or jean.moylan@arts.nsw.gov.au or visit www.arts.nsw.gov.au.

John Nieuwenhuizen wins 2007 Prize

The biennial Translation Prize and PEN Medallion, co-sponsored by Sydney PEN, was awarded to John Nieuwenhuizen, who translates from Dutch to English. The award is for excellence in literary translation across a body of work. The judges noted in particular Nieuwenhuizen's translations of  Guus Kuijer's The Book of Everything, Jan Simoen's And What About Anna? and Anne Provoost's Falling, among others. The Translation Award judges panel included Sydney PEN Vice President Sally Blakeney (chair), Suzan Piper and Beth Yahp.

The literary translator's task is a paradox, demanding fidelity and inventiveness in equal measure... Read the judges' citation.

Special Event

The renewal of things past: Translating Zola & Proust

Date: Wednesday 27 June 2007
Time: 5.30 pm for 6 pm
Venue: Dixson Room, Mitchell Wing, State Library of NSW
Cost: $15, includes light refreshments. Bookings on 02 9273 1770 or bookings@sl.nsw.gov.au

Emile Zola and Marcel Proust living in Australia? Their English translators do. Professor Brian Nelson, specialist in 19th century French literature and culture and translation studies, has translated and edited Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, Pot Luck and The Kill for Oxford University Press. His publications include Intellectuals in Contemporary France, The Idea of Europe and Naturalism in the European Novel and he is currently preparing The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola. He is joined by James Grieve, Visiting fellow in French at the Australian National University, whose works include translations of Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann and Á l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. Presented in association with Sydney PEN.

PEN in Translation

Read Chris Andrews' translation of "Dance Card", by the late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, which is published on the American PEN website (www.pen.org). Chris was the recipient of American PEN's 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award for his translation of Roberto Bolaño's Last Evenings on Earth (New Directions, 2006). The award was established to encourage translation into English. Chris is a Sydney PEN member and past recipient of the NSW Premier's Translation Award and PEN medallion.

2007 NSW Premier's Translation Prize

The closing date for nominations for the 2007 NSW Premier's Translation Prize and PEN Medallion was Friday 1 December 2006.  The Prize, worth $15,000, was proposed by Sydney PEN to acknowledge the valuable contribution to literary culture made by translators. It is offered by the New South Wales Government through Arts NSW and the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW, in cooperation with Sydney PEN. The prize is for a body of work, rather than any one translation and recognises the vital role literary translators play in enabling writers and readers to communicate across cultures. It will be awarded again this year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Dinner in May. More information can be found at www.arts.nsw.gov.au.

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Translation Events and Conferences

11-12 April 2007: The FIT 5th Asian Translators Forum, Bogor, Indonesia 
The FIT 5th Asian Translators Forum will be held in Bogor, Indonesia, 11-12 April 2007. The Forum will be hosted by the Association of Indonesian Translators/ Himpunan Penerjemah Indonesia (HPI) and will be held in the City of Bogor, West-Java Province, Indonesia. The theme of the forum is "Translation and Cultural Dialogue". For more information read this summary. For further details contact Maria or Edlina at asiaforum@wartahpi.org.

The Disappearing Act of Translation

"For translators are among the disappeared. Time and again translation is rendered invisible, forgotten, not in the budget, airbrushed out, and I want to know why. This is surely a matter of professional self-interest to literary translators, but also a concern for someone like myself who is a consumer of translation – as we all are, whether we recognise it or not..."

Deputy Chair of the Sydney PEN Translation Committee Nicholas Jose addressed the inaugural meeting of the Australian Association for Literary Translation (AALITRA) on August 1, 2006, at Monash University. An edited version of the speech will appear soon in Australian Book Review.

Literary Translation in Australia Today

July 2006: Sydney PEN and Melbourne PEN have reported to International PEN on the state of literary translation in Australia today. The information in this report will form the Australian section of an International PEN report, Translation and Globalization, edited by translator and American PEN member Esther Allen, to be formally published later this. Read the Australian Report. Read the "English as an Invasive Species" by Esher Allen, an essay to be included in the report. 

Past Winners of the PEN Medallion and NSW Premier

In 2005, the PEN Medallion and Translation Prize were awarded to Chris Andrews, a translator, poet and commentator who has moved between French and Spanish but is known particularly for his translations from Spanish of writers such as Jaime Collyer, Julio Cortázar and Roberto Bolaño. The judges for the 2005 award were PEN Translation Committee members Julie Rose (chair of the judging panel) and Nicholas Jose, together with Tony Stephens. Read Chris's translation of "Dance Card" by Bolaño, from Last Evenings on Earth & Other Stories (New Directions, 2006).


In 2003, the award was made to Julie Rose, renowned for her translations of the French cultural critic Paul Virilio. Published in the UK, the US and Australia, Rose has also translated Jean Racine, Alexandre Dumas, Jacques Rancière, Michel Leiris, Pierre Bourdieu, Marguerite Duras, and Chantal Thomas. The shortlist for the 2003 prize included Harry Aveling, translating from Indonesian; Patricia Clancy, from French; and Jennifer Lindsay, from Arabic. The judges were Vrasidas Karalis (chair), Mabel Lee and Evelyn Juers.

Mabel Lee who translated Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain and One Man's Bible, won the award in 2001. The inaugural year saw entries from 16 languages - Arabic, Assyrian, Bengali, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Macedonian, Polish, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese - and covered most genres: prose, poetry, drama for both stage and radio, literary non-fiction. Patricia Clancy, Simon Patton and Julie Rose were on the shortlist. Judges were Barbara McGilvray (chair), Helmut Bakaitis and Vivian Smith. 

Did You Know?

Did you know that a mere 2-3% of books published in the US and the UK are translations? (40% of those published in Turkey are.) Most translations that are sold in Australia are those published in the US and UK. How much of our world are we reading about?

Did you know that the €100,000 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award gives 25% of the prize to the translator if the winning book is in English translation?