Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

The Susan Sontag Prize for Translators
September 23, 2008

Even when Susan Sontag was alive she was being read in many languages around the world and she made sure to travel to those countries to interact with her readers. A promoter of cultures and languages, she also defended translation as a fundamental art in need of support. Thus her foundation recently launched a literary prize, last year it went to translators from the German, this year Spanish is being honored.  The details for the prize are pasted in below. But first, here are some of Sontag’s own words on translation I enjoyed from her book At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches (Farrar Straus & Giroux).

“The very first time I raised to myself the problem of a poor translation was when I started going to the opera, in Chicago, when I was sixteen. There I held in my hands for the first time an en face translation – the original language on the left (by this time I had some French and Italian) and the English on the right – and I was stunned and mystified by the blatant inaccuracy of the translations. (It was to be many years before I understood why the words in a libretto cannot be translated literally.) Opera excepted, I never asked myself, in those early years of reading literature in translation, about what I was missing. It was as if I felt it were my job, as a passionate reader, to see through the faults or limitations of a translation – as one sees through (or looks past) the scratches on a bad print of a beloved old film one is seeing once again. Translations were a gift, for which I would always be grateful. What – rather, who – would I be without Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and Chekhov?”

****
THE 2009 SUSAN SONTAG PRIZE FOR TRANSLATION

$5,000 grant for a literary translation from Spanish into English:

 This $5,000 grant will be awarded to a proposed work of literary translation from Spanish into English and is open to anyone under the age of 30. The translation must fall under the category of fiction or  letters, and the applicant will propose his or her own translation project. The project should be  manageable for a five-month period of work, as the grant will be awarded in May 2009, and the  translation must be completed by October 2009.

Acceptable proposals include a novella, a play, a collection of short stories or poems, or a collection of  letters that have literary import. Preference will be given to works that have not been previously  translated. (Previously translated works will be considered, however applicants should include an  explanation for why they are proposing a new translation.) Applicants wishing to translate significantly  longer works should contact the Foundation before sending in their applications so that supplementary materials can be included. The prizewinner will be notified on May 15, 2009 and results will be announced online at www.susansontag.org.

 The recipient will be expected to participate in symposia on literary translation with established writers  and translators, as well as public readings of their work once the translation has been completed.  Application Requirements (Please download the official application online at www.susansontag.org.)

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on September 23, 2008 | Comments (0)