2005 Advisory Board: Esther Allen, Sara Bershtel, Barbara Epler, Michael Henry Heim, and Eliot Weinberger

Chris Andrews for his translation from the Spanish of Last Evenings on Earth, a selection of short stories by Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003). The collection was published by New Directions (U.S.) and Harvill (U.K.) in 2006; two of the short stories included in it appeared in The New Yorker in 2005.

Rachel Tzvia Back for her translation from the Hebrew of Lea Goldberg: Selected Poetry and Drama. Goldberg (1911–1970) was awarded the Israel Prize for her lifetime’s achievement and is a pre-eminent figure in modern Hebrew letters. This selection, the most extensive of Goldberg’s poetry published to date in English, was published in the Toby Press’s Hebrew Classics series in the fall of 2005.

Susan Bernofsky for her translation from the German of The Old Child and Other Stories by Jenny Erpenbeck, which brings together Erpenbeck’s acclaimed novella “The Story of the Old Child” and five shorter stories from her collection Tand (Sand). The Old Child was published by New Directions in 2005; in 2006 it was awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize, administered by the Goethe-Institut Chicago.

Heather Cleary for her translation from the Spanish of The Persuasion of Days, a selection of work by Argentine avant-garde poet Olivero Girondo, a contemporary of Borges whose wry, cosmopolitan eroticism expressed the sensibility of his age and retains great appeal in ours. Some of the poems appeared in the spring 2006 issue of The Literary Review.

Karen Emmerich for her translation from the Greek of Poems (1945-1971) by Miltos Sachtouris, one of the most influential Greek poets of the 20th century. His work, deeply emotional as well as formally experimental, is intimately tied to the violent history of his native Greece. Published by Archipelago Press in 2006, the book was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2007.

Jason Grunebaum for his translation from the Hindi of The Girl with the Golden Parasol, a novel by Uday Prakash. This wildly postmodern narrative tells, among others, the uproarious tale of a young man’s all-consuming passion for the Bollywood starlet featured in the poster on his bedroom wall. (Penguin India, 2008)

Deborah Hoffman for her translation from the Russian of Children of the Gulag, ed. Semen Samuilovich Vilenskii, a volume of memoirs, diaries, and letters by the children of Soviet enemies of the people. Some were written at the time of the events recounted, and some from a perspective of many years later. Excerpts from the project have appeared in the Toronto Slavic Quarterly.

Elizabeth Macklin for her translation from the Basque of Meanwhile Take My Hand: Poems by Kirmen Uribe. In these lyrics and narratives are the paved-over rivers of newly urbanized medieval cities, the remains of loving relationships, whether entirely uprooted or making do with a companionable silence. The Basque phrase Bitartean heldu eskutik, which became the book’s title, is, Uribe has said, “what you say when there’s nothing at all you can say.” (Graywolf Press, 2007)

Susanna Nied for her translation from the Danish of Butterfly Valley by Inger Christensen, a collection of four medium-length works by one of Europe’s most revered poets, describing butterflies in the Bracjino Valley, piazzas in Rome, immortality in the whiteness of the page, and the “coming together” of a couple and their failure to connect. (New Directions, 2005)

Laima Sruoginis for her translation from the Lithuanian of My Voice Betrays Me, oral narratives of Lithuanian street children collected by Vanda Juknaite. (East European Monographs, 2007)

George Szirtes for his translation from the Hungarian of War and War by Laszlo Krasznahorkai. The second of the legendary Krasznahorkai’s novels to appear in English, this is the visionary, dark, obsessive, funny, and finally terrifying story of a man who discovers a mysterious document in the archives. (New Directions, 2006)

Paul Vincent for his translation from the Dutch of Summer in Termuren by Louis Paul Boon, widely considered the greatest Belgian novelist of the 20th century. This saga follows the lives of a young married couple adrift in a Belgian landscape that, as the story begins, is darkening under the looming specter of World War I. (Dalkey Archive Press, 2006)

Susan Wilf for her translation from the Chinese of Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China, a memoir by dissident Kang Zhengguo which traces his life from Mao’s China in the 1940s to the present. Branded a thought criminal as a youth, he was assigned to forced labor, served time in the Chinese gulag, and was driven into exile in the countryside until his eventual exoneration. Then came Tiananmen Square. (W.W. Norton, 2007)