French author Olivia Rosenthal's book among 2018 PEN Translates award winners
To leave with the Reindeer by Olivia Rosenthal, translated by Sophie Lewis and published by And Other Stories, just won one of the 2018 PEN Translates awards. Congratulations to them, and to the 16 other winners! This year, the selected books come from 17 countries and encapsulate 10 languages. In France, the book was published by the éditions Verticales in 2010 and received 3 French literature awards (the Prix du Livre inter, Prix Alexandre- Vialatte and the Prix Eve Delacroix).
PEN Translates was launched in 2012, with support from Arts Council England, to encourage UK publishers to acquire more books from other languages. The award helps UK publishers to meet the costs of translating new works into English whilst ensuring translators are acknowledged and paid properly for their work.
The books that are selected for PEN Translates awards all meet the criteria of outstanding literary quality, strength of the publishing project, and contribution to literary diversity in the UK. This year, the awards include poetry collections from the Caribbean, Indonesia, The Netherlands and Iran, novels from Sudan, Cape Verde and Syria, and autofiction from Peru. It also includes the Olivia Rosenthal novel To leave with the Reindeer.
English PEN is the founding centre of a worldwide writers’ association with 145 centres in more than 100 countries. Their aim is to defend writers and readers in the UK and around the world whose human right to freedom of expression is at risk. They work to remove inequalities and match writers with marginalized groups such as people in prisons in the UK, in refugee or detention centres and young people in disadvantaged areas, opening minds to reading and creative writing. The centre facilitates and promotes translation into English of published work in foreign languages they consider to be of outstanding literary merit.
Read more about the winning book To leave with the Reindeer, its author and translator.
In To leave with the Reindeer, the reader is plunged into the universe of a little girl who grows up page after page. From a little girl who believes Christmas presents arrive with Santa's Reindeer sleigh to a naïve teenager and finally an obedient spouse, she will eventually emancipate herself. Throughout the book, there is a continuous parallel with the animal world, especially with people who work with them (laboratory assistant, butcher, breeder, trainer..). In a way, both humans and animals are imprisoned, raised, educated and protected and that is the story's common theme. That parallel makes the reader question himself on the human and the animal condition through that girl story.
Olivia Rosenthal is a french novelist, playwright and performance artist. She is also a literature lecturer at the Paris VIII University. After obtaining her PhD in Modern Languages, she starts her lecturer career in 1999 and already publishes her first novels and plays. Along her career she won various french literature prize, including the Prix Wepler and the Prix Pierre-Simon "Ethique et réfléxion" for her novel We're not here to disapear published in 2007 and translated by Béatrice Mousli.
Sophie Lewis is a London-born writer, editor and translator from French and Portuguese. Recent translations include The Earth Turned Upside Down by Jules Verne (Hesperus) and The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Aymé (Pushkin). She is a Senior Editor at the publishing house And Other Stories.
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