Writers and Translators Join the Conversation at the 2023 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize Ceremony

2023 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize Ceremony

Tuesday, November 14th | 7:00 pm

NYU KJCC, 53 Washington Square S, New York, NY

The 2023 Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize Ceremony is gearing up to be a spectacular evening celebrating Spanish literature in translation, specifically because of notable guest speakers who will share their unique insights.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez joins the evening as keynote speaker of the event and will present the pen nib shaped award to the winning translator, in partnership with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. Vásquez is a writer, translator, and journalist who was lauded by Mario Vargas Llosa as “one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature.”

Vásquez’s previous books include the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning Reputations, The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collection Lovers on All Saints’ Day. His many awards and nominations include winner of the Alfaguara Novel Prize, the Orden Isabela la Católica, and the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize among other accolades. His novels have been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide, and he has also translated works into Spanish such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or Victor Hugo. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá.

In addition to the keynote address, the Translation Prize ceremony program will also include a moderated panel, followed by a Q&A that will be open to the audience. Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Samantha Schnee will both participate in this roundtable discussion to be moderated by a senior member of the Translation Prize’s jury, Heather McCleary. If present, the prize winner, to be announced at the ceremony on November 14^th, will also take part in this discussion that will highlight the best in translation of Spanish-language literature.

Panelist Samantha Schnee is the founding editor of Words Without Borders. Her translation of The Goddesses of Water, a collection by Mexican poet Jeannette Clariond, was published by Shearsman Books in the UK (August 2021) and World Poetry Books in the US. Her translation of Carmen Boullosa’s penultimate novel, The Book of Anna, was published by Coffee House Press last year, and her translation of Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize. She is a trustee of English PEN, where she chaired the Writers in Translation committee from 2014–17, and she currently serves as secretary of the American Literary Translators Association. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she lives in Houston, Texas.

Member of the prize’s jury Heather Cleary will moderate this panel of experts bringing her own extensive background in the field to this conversation. Cleary’s translations of prose and poetry have been recognized by the National Book Foundation, PEN America, and the Best Translated Book Award, among others. Her first book, The Translator’s Visibility: Scenes from Contemporary Latin American Fiction (Bloomsbury 2021), explores the challenge that fictional translators pose to the concepts of originality and intellectual property. She has served on the jury of the National Book Award for Translation, the BTBA, and the PEN Translation Award; she is also a founding member of the translation collective Cedilla & Co. and was a founding editor of the digital, bilingual Buenos Aires Review. She holds a PhD in Latin American and Iberian Cultures from Columbia University and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

To attend the Translation Prize Ceremony on November 14^th at 7:00 pm, RSVP here.

About the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize:

With the aim of elevating awareness and engendering appreciation of Spanish-language literature in the United States, this $10,000 prize was created by the Cultural Committee and Board of Directors of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute to honor the best English-language translation of a literary work written in Spanish. Formerly a triennial prize, it is now awarded yearly. The Reading Committee for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize consists of a minimum of three scholars with expertise in Spanish and/or Latin American literature, translation, culture, and/or language. In 2010, the Reading Committee of the Inaugural Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize unanimously recommended Edith Grossman to receive the award for her extraordinary translation of Antonio Muñoz Molina’s A Manuscript of Ashes.

Photo credit. Diana Matar