The Oxford–Weidenfeld Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance. It was founded by Lord Weidenfeld and is supported by New College, The Queen’s College and St Anne’s College, Oxford.
This year’s judges, Patrick McGuinness, Laura Seymour, Holly Langstaff, and Karolina Watroba (Chair), read over 100 eligible submissions of various genres and periods, written in more than 25 languages, and published by more than 30 different publishers, big and small.
The 2021 shortlist was:
- Vénus Khoury-Ghata, The Last Days of Mandelstam, translated from French by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Seagull)
- Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, The Discomfort of Evening, translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison (Faber)
- Ulrike Almut Sandig, I Am a Field Full of Rapeseed, Give Cover to Deer and Shine Like Thirteen Oil Paintings Laid One on Top of the Other, translated from German by Karen Leeder (Seagull)
- Guadalupe Nettel, Bezoar, translated from Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine (Seven Stories Press UK)
- David Diop, At Night All Blood Is Black, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis (Pushkin)
- Esther Kinsky, Grove, translated from German by Caroline Schmidt (Fitzcarraldo)
- Andrzej Tichý, Wretchedness, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories)
- Graciliano Ramos, São Bernardo, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan (NYRB)
The winner of this year’s Prize is Nichola Smalley for her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s Wretchedness (And Other Stories).
Find out more about the prize here.