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"Seven Houses in France" among the finalists for best translation of the year

2012-05-04  ¦  Prizes

The English translation of Bernardo Atxaga’s novel Seven Houses in France (original title Zazpi etxe Frantzian) is one of the finalists for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, an award that honors the year’s best translations into English. Margaret Jull Costa’s outstanding translation has been chosen as one of six finalists.

We have been keeping track in our news section of the positive reception that Bernardo Atxaga’s Seven Houses in France has had in the UK (for example, see 1, 2 and 3) in recent weeks.

Today we are excited to announce that Seven Houses in France, Atxaga’s latest novel, has just been chosen as one of six finalists for this year’s Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, an award given to honor the best translation into English published in 2011. The novel was translated into English by British translator Margaret Jull Costa.

Here is the list of finalists:

  • Margaret Jull Costa for Seven Houses in France (Bernardo Atxaga. Harvill Secker)
  • John Ashbery for Illuminations (Arthur Rimbaud. Carcanet)
  • Judith Landry for New Finnish (Diego Marani. Grammar)
  • Howard Curtis for How I Lost the War (Filippo Bologna. Pushkin)
  • Rosalind Harvey for Down the Rabbit Hole (Juan Pablo Villalobos. And Other Stories)
  • Martin McLaughlin for Into the War (Italo Calvino. Penguin)

The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, first awarded in 1999, is a prize given in recognition of the best literary translation into English from any living European language. The list of previous winners can be found on the prize organizers’ web site.

Among the list of previous winners is none other than the translator of a number of Atxaga’s novels, Margaret Jull Costa, who has won the prize three times. Jull Costa’s long career as translator of Portuguese and Spanish fiction and poetry includes, in addition to Atxaga, renowned authors such as Javier Marías, Fernando Pessoa, and José Saramago. She has received numerous awards over the years, including the PEN Book-of-the-Month Translation Award in 2008 and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for the following works: All the Names by José Saramago (2000), The Maias by Eça de Queiroz (2008) and The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago (2011). In 2010 she also won the Times Literary Supplement translation prize for her translation into English of Atxaga’s novel The Accordionist's Son.