The American Literary Translators Association has released the shortlists for the 2025 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose, which recognizes literary translators "who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality."
The winners will be named on November 6 at an awards ceremony during ALTA's annual conference, ALTA48: Visions and Versions, in Tucson, Ariz. The winning translators receive $4,000 each. This year's shortlisted titles are:
Prose
The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman & Sawad Hussain (Restless Books)
Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes, translated from French by Frank Wynne (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Pedro Lemebel, translated from Spanish by Gwendolyn Harper (Penguin Books)
Melvill by Rodrigo Fresán, translated from Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter Books)
Sand-Catcher by Omar Khalifah, translated from Arabic by Barbara Romaine (Coffee House Press)
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King (Graywolf Press)
Poetry
The Brush by Eliana Hernández-Pachón, translated from Colombian Spanish by Robin Myers (Archipelago Books)
Chimera by Phoebe Giannisi, translated from Greek by Brian Sneeden (New Directions)
Document Shredding Museum by Afrizal Malna, translated from Indonesian by Daniel Owen (World Poetry Books)
How to Love in Sanskrit by various authors, translated from Sanskrit by Anusha Rao & Suhas Mahesh (HarperCollins India)
Just Like by Lee Sumyeong, translated from Korean by Colin Leemarshall (Black Ocean)
Transit by Claudina Domingo, translated from Mexican Spanish by Ryan Greene (Eulalia Books)