Dalkey Archive Press is pleased to announce that two of its translations have been selected for the longlist for the 2020 Dublin International Literary Award. The two titles are Matei Brunul by Lucian Dan Teodorovici of Romania and Sonka by Ignacy Karpowicz of Poland.
David Lodge described Teodorovici’s novel, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth, as “exquisitely comic and movingly tragic by turns, while its shifting perspectives in time and narrative point of view keep the reader constantly involved in the story. It is a remarkable achievement by a writer who was born in 1975 and had no personal experience of the era it describes, bearing comparison with classics of the genre such as Milan Kundera’s The Joke.”
Maya Zakrzewska-Pim’s translation of Karpowicz’s work captures the original’s “multi-layered, nuanced and perspicacious” and is “an impressively satisfying read.”
The translation and publication of Sonka was greatly aided by support from the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme, as part of Dalkey Archive multi-year series of literature from Eastern and Central Europe. The Series has thus far published over 125 titles. Quite recently, Creative Europe announced an award of €100,000 to Dalkey Archive to support the translation and publication of ten new titles from Eastern and Central Europe.
Dalkey Archive publisher John O’Brien said of the nomination of these two books, “We congratulate the authors, and are very happy that these authors are gaining this attention. Eastern and Central European literature, which I believe to be, along with Latin American writing, the richest and most daring work being done today, is greatly overlooked in English-language publishing.”
The shortlst for the award will be announced in April, and the winning book will will be announced in June. The prize for the winning title is €100,000, divided between author and translator.
For more information, please contact obrien@dalkeyarchive.com
