First Palmer Prize in the Queen's College, Oxford
The Book Office is delighted to share exciting news for translation in the academic world! The Queen's College, in Oxford, just launched a new translation prize, which is to be awarded annually on the result of a translation paper which is sat at the start of Hilary Term (which, for us non-Oxfordians, means the beginning of January).
Top row, left to right: Elizabeth Peck (French and Russian), Samuel Davis (French and German), Dr Jessica Stacey (Queen's College), Catherine Palmer, Kanak Shah (First Prize, French), Ross Lawrence (French), Lydia Cockburn (Last year's winner of the Markheim Prize for translation), Susannah Finlay (French); bottom row: Professor Seth Whidden (Queen's College), Dominique Le Fur (Le Robert), Thalia Kent-Egan (French and German), Gemma Smale (French), Georgina Ramsey (English and French)
After a career as a lexicographer and then an international lawyer, Old Member Ms Catherine Palmer created a prize for translation into and out of French. The Palmer Prize is similar to another College prize, the Markheim Prize. While the Markheim Prize is intended for finalists returning from their year abroad, the Palmer Prize is intended for second-year students who sit a translation collection during 0th week of Hilary Term. In addition to financial prize for the award recipients, all participants received an electronic version of the Collins-Robert dictionary for use during their year abroad. The inclusion of the dictionary as part of the award comes thanks to the generosity of Ms Palmer’s long-time colleague and collaborator Ms Dominique Le Fur of Dictionnaires Le Robert; for many years Ms Le Fur served as editorial director with responsibility for the Collins-Robert dictionary series, and is now director of their IT and digital products.
To launch the inaugural Palmer Prize, there was an evening to discuss career opportunities working with languages for all modern linguists on Friday 16 February, in the Shulman Auditorium, with Ms Palmer, Ms Le Fur, and recent Old Member Lydia Cockburn, who completed her studies last year and is working for DM Education, a literacy startup in Oxford. Following the event, Ms Palmer hosted a dinner in College for all students eligible for the Palmer Prize and their tutors, the participants in the career discussion, and members of Ms Palmer’s family.
And the winners are...
Professor Seth Whidden, Samuel Davis (French and German), Susannah Finlay (French), Kanak Shah (French), Catherine Palmer
For producing the best translations during the Collection, the winner of the inaugural Palmer Prize was Miss Kanak Shah, with Mr Sam Davis and Miss Susannah Finlay as winners of proxime accesserunt prizes.
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