Translation Prize

Since 1986, the French-American Foundation, with the long-standing support of the Florence Gould Foundation, has awarded annual translation prizes for the best translation from French to English in fiction and non-fiction.

FINALISTS

We are pleased to announce the ten finalists selected by the jury of the French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation’s 25th Annual Translation Prize, which recognize superior English translations of French works published in 2011.

The finalists will be honored at the annual Awards Ceremony in May, where the winning Fiction and Non-Fiction translators will be announced and receive their $10,000 cash prize, funded by the Florence Gould Foundation.

Jurors for this year’s competition include Linda Asher, David Bellos, Linda Coverdale, Serge Gavronsky, Lorin Stein and Lily Tuck.

Fiction:
	*Life and a Half*, Sony Labou Tansy, translated by Alison Dundy, Indiana University Press. Listed as one of the 100 best books on Africa, Life and a Half was Sony Labou Tansi’s response to the death of close friends during a bloody military and political crackdown in Congo. Learn more about this book.
	The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irène Némirovsky by Her Daughter, Elizabeth Gille, translated by Marina Harss, New York Review Books. Written a decade before the publication of Suite Française made Irène Némirovsky famous once more, her daughter’s book reveals the ambiguity in Némirowsky’s life and work in a profound and empathetic way. Learn more about this book.
	A Thousand Pearls (For a Thousand Pennies), Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Ian Monk, Dalkey Archive Press. A delightful book which offers a thousandspontaneous, trivial, amusing or tragic answers to the question “What are you thinking?”. Learn more about this book.
	The Truth About Marie, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated by Matthew B. Smith, Dalkey Archive Press. A novel which relies on a series of contrasts to tell a beguiling, and touching story of intimacy constantly regained and lost. Learn more about this book.
	Demolishing Nisard, Eric Chevillard, translated by Jordan Stump, Dalkey Archive Press. With effervescent imagination and blistering wit, Eric Chevillard has come forward to give us a few ideas about how we can demolish Désiré Nisard, a French nineteenth-century literary critic. Learn more about this book.

Non Fiction:
	The Last of the Egyptians, Gérard Macé, translated by Brian Evenson, Burning Deck. Macé explores Champollion's twin interests: Egypt and "America's savage nations," his deciphering of the Rosetta stone and the Indians' deciphering of the forest. Learn more about this book.
	When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli, translated by Richard Howard, New York Review Books. A gallery of incisive portraits of eighteenth-century Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French at a time when French culture set the standard for all of Europe. Learn more about this book.
	The Ancien Régime and the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Cambridge University Press. An undisputed classic in which Tocqueville’s subtlety of style and profundity of thought offer a challenge to readers. Learn more about this book.
	Balzac’s Omelette, Anka Muhlstein, translated by Adriana Hunter, Other Press. An erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honoré de Balzac’s writings. Learn more about this book.
	Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy, Pascal Bruckner, translated by Steven Rendall, Princeton University Press. A stimulating and entertaining mediation on the unhappiness at the heart of the modern cult of happiness. Learn more about this book.