"The Accordionist's Son" wins translation prize

The Times has just announced its annual Times Literary Supplement Translation Prizes, awarded each year to the best translations into English.

Among the winners for 2009 is Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of Bernardo Atxaga's novel El hijo del acordeonista (original version in basque, "Soinujolearen semea"), which was published in the UK as "The Accordionist's Son".

In addition to Atxaga's novel, the following translations also received honours: Burning Secret (Stefan Zweig), translated from German by Anthea Bell; The Summer Book (Tove Jansson), translated from Swedish by Thomas Teal; Gross Margin (Laurent Quintreau), translated from French by Polly McLean; The Collar and the Bracelet (Yahya Taher Abdullah), translated from Arabic by Samah Selim.

Additional information and a statement by winner Margaret Jull Costa can be found in this article at The Guardian.