.jpg "Rossica Prize 2012 brochure")
ROSSICA TRANSLATION PRIZE 2012
Winner – John Elsworth
We are delighted to announce that Professor John Elsworth has won the Rossica Translation Prize 2012 for his translation of Petersburg by Andrei Bely.
The announcement was made to a packed audience of publishers, translators, writers, press and prominent cultural figures at the Russian Bookshop in Waterstones Piccadilly. HE Alexander Yakovenko, Ambassador of the Russian Federation, speaking before the official announcement, described translators of Russian literature as "the true ambassadors" of Russian culture abroad. The ￡5000 Rossica Translation Prize, shared between the translator and publisher, was presented by Pamela Davidson, Professor of Russian Literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL.
Faced with the difficult task of selecting a final winner from a shortlist of such outstanding quality, the judges agreed unanimously on John Elsworth’s translation. In particular they praised Elsworth's for "producing a masterful translation that reads like a work of art in its own right.”
The judges also awarded a Special Commendation to Hugh and Galya Aplin, in recognition of the quality and variety of their numerous translations.
Congratulations to our winners and we would like to thank all those who attended for making the award ceremony such a special and memorable event!
For more information on the winners, as well as those shortlisted, please see the event brochure.
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Winner John Elsworth and Judge Pamela Davidson |
The Rossica Translation Prize Shortlist
The Rossica Translation Prize Longlist
Boris Godunov and Little Tragedies
By Alexander PushkinTranslated by Roger Clarke
Oneworld Classics; 2010; pp. 325
ISBN 978-1-84749-147-3
A drama of ambition, murder, remorse, and retribution Boris Godunov charts the decline of a Russian statesman, whose dynastic aims were foiled by a guilty past and audacious upstart. Little Tragedies each focus on a protagonist's driving obsession - with status, money, sex, or risk taking - and its devastating consequences.
The Cathedral Clergy: A Chronicle
By Nikolay LeskovTranslated by Margaret Winchell
Slavica; 2010; pp. 532
ISBN 978-0-89357-373-7
As beloved by Russians as the works of Leskov’s better known fellow writers, The Cathedral Clergy offers, in its unusual subject matter and unconventional structure, a unique approach to the Russian Realist novel. It is the tale of a town, an adventure story, a love story, a life of a modern martyr, a comedy as well as a tragedy. Given its vivid style The Cathedral Clergy has proven nearly impossible to translate. This expert annotated translation, however, now affords English speakers the pleasure of discovering a nineteenth-century Russian novel.
Two Princesses
By Vladimir OdoevskyTranslated by Neil Cornwell
Hesperus Press; 2010; pp. 141
ISBN 1-84391-138-8
The eponymous princesses are both spinsters, but there any similarity must end. Zizi, thwarted in love, takes her lot meekly until she comes face to face with her erstwhile lover’s perfidy, and her sense of justice and familial devotion compel her to claim a bittersweet revenge. Mimi meanwhile, whose own romantic failures have left her bitter and resentful, takes her revenge falsely, leading those around her to a tragic end.
A Confession
By Leo TolstoyTranslated by A.D.P. Briggs
Hesperus Press; 2010; pp. 146
ISBN 978-1-84391-190-6
Tolstoy’s autobiographical A Confession is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life’s movement away from the religious certainties of youth, and a vital piece of reading which contextualises the great works for which he is best known. Marking the point at which his life moved from the worldly to the spiritual, Tolstoy’s philosophical reassessment of the Orthodox faith is a work which holds spiritual and intellectual importance until today. This volume also presents Tolstoy’s little-known 1902 essay ‘What is religion?’
My Life
By Sofia Andreevna TolstayaTranslated by John Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski
University of Ottawa Press; 2009; pp. 1125
ISBN 978-0-7766-3042-7
My Life is the most important primary document about Tolstoy to be published in many years and a unique and intimate portrait of one of the greatest literary minds of all time, providing new details about his life to which she alone was privy. Tolstaya’s story takes us from her childhood through the early years of her marriage, the writing of War and Peace and Anna Karenina and into the first year of the twentieth century.
Uncle’s Dream
By Fyodor DostoevskyTranslated by Hugh Aplin
Hesperus Press; 2011; pp. 158
ISBN 978-1-84391-208-8
When the ageing Russian Prince, Prince K., arrives in the town of Mordasov, Marya Alexandrovna Moskaleva, a doyenne of local society life, takes him under her protection, with the aim of engineering his marriage with her twenty-three year old daughter Zina. Yet with many rivals for the hands of both parties, events are not guaranteed to run smoothly. The gossiping and rumour-mill of the country village are deftly captured in Dostoevsky’s mock-heroic tone. Uncle’s Dream nonetheless still possesses all the hallmarks of Dostoevsky’s psychological and philosophical writing.
Petersburg
By Andrei BelyTranslated by John Elsworth
Pushkin Press; 2009; pp. 569
ISBN 978-1-901285-96-3
Petersburg is a story of family dysfunction, parricide, political terror, conspiracy and murder, but it also points to apocalypse and redemption. The world of history−the revolution of 1905−and the world of myth−in the figure of Saturn, who devours his children and in turn is devoured by them−are intertwined. Russia is torn apart by the conflict between revolutions and reaction, at the level of myth, these opposites are indistinguishable. The Ableukhovs, father and son, embody this conflict, but are scions of the same Mongol lineage.
The Fatal Eggs
By Mikhail BulgakovTranslated by Michael Karpelson
Translit Publishing; 2010; pp. 100
ISBN 978-0-9812695-2-8
As the turbulent years following the Russian revolution of 1917 settle down into a new Soviet reality, the brilliant and eccentric zoologist Persikov discovers an amazing ray that drastically increases the size and reproductive rate of living organisms. At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov's untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world.
Everything Flows
By Vasily GrossmanTranslated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Anna Aslanyan
Harvill Secker; 2010; pp. 289
ISBN 978-1-846-55236-6
Ivan Grigoryevich has been in the Gulag for thirty years. Released after Stalin's death, he finds that the years of terror have imposed a collective moral slavery. He must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan's story is only one among many. Everything Flows is an unbearably lucid novel about human suffering from one of the giants of twentieth-century literature.
The Road
By Vasily GrossmanTranslated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Mukovnikova
Maclehose Press; 2010; pp. 392
Vasily Grossman is widely recognized as one of the outstanding literary figures of the twentieth century. The short fiction collected here - satire, comedy, tragedy and pure narrative - illustrate the remarkable breadth of his work, and demonstrate all the bold intelligence, delicate irony and extraordinary vividness for which he has become known. In addition to the eleven stories, this volume includes the complete text of 'The Hell of Treblinka', one of the first descriptions of a Nazi extermination camp.
The Little Golden Calf
By Ilya Ilf and Evgeny PetrovTranslated by Anne O. Fisher
Russian Life Books; 2009; pp. 445
ISBN 978-1880100-61-5
The Little Golden Calf stands alongside the works of Griboyedov, Pushkin, and Gogol for its profound effect on Russian language and culture. The tale overflows with trenchant catchphrases and legendary literary episodes, offering a portrait of Russian life that is as funny and true today as it was when the novel was first published. The famous satirical sequel to The Twelve Chairs resurrects the con man Ostap Bender and follows him and his three hapless co-conspirators on a hilarious romp through the Soviet Russia and Central Asia of 1930.
The Golden Calf
By Ilya Ilf and Evgeny PetrovTranslated by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson
Open Letter; 2009; pp. 336
ISBN 978-1934824078
The Golden Calf—the first complete translation of the novel—restores the absurd, manic energy of the original and reaffirms the judgment of the Soviet censors, who said: "You have a very nice hero, Ostap Bender. But really, he's just a son of a bitch." Ostap Bender, the "grand strategist," is obsessed with getting one last big score—a few hundred thousand will do—and heading for Rio de Janeiro, where there are "a million and a half people, all of them wearing white pants, without exception."
Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir
By Fyodor Vasilevich MochulskyTranslated by Deborah Kaple
Oxford University Press; 2011; pp. 225
ISBN 978-0-19-974266-0
The searing accounts of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Evgeniia Ginsberg and Varlam Shalamov opened the world's eyes to the terrors of the Soviet Gulag. But not until now has there been a memoir of life inside the camps written from the perspective of an actual employee of the Secret police. In this riveting memoir, superbly translated by Deborah Kaple, Fyodor Mochulsky describes being sent to work as a boss at the forced labor camp of Pechorlag in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle.
The Foundation Pit
By Andrey PlatonovTranslated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson
Vintage Books; 2009; pp. 224
ISBN 978-0-099-52974-3
One of his greatest works, The Foundation Pit begins with a group of workers digging a giant pit. The pit is intended for the foundations of a tower that will be a home to the whole of the local proletariat – but the tower is never built and the pit comes to be used as a grave for the little orphaned girl who had symbolized the workers’ hopes of a bright new future.The novel can be read as Platonov’s response to the devastation brought about by Stalin’s policies of industrialization and the collectivization.
The Gloomy River
By Vyacheslav ShishkovTranslated by Irina Henderson
Self-published; 2005; pp. 2 volumes pp. 456, pp. 481
It took Shishkov twelve years, from 1920 to 1932, to complete his monumental epic Ugrium-Reka ("Gloomy River"). It is a grand, 800-page treatment of greed, love, success, failure, and violence surrounding the search for gold in Siberia. After its publication Konstantin Fedin said: ”If our reader wants to plunge into the depths of Siberian history, he cannot do without Vycheslav Shishkov”.
The Tale of Hodja Nasreddin: Disturber of the Peace
By Leonid SolovyovTranslated by Michael Karpelson
Translit Publishing; 2009; pp. 220
ISBN 978-0-9812695-04
Returning to Bukhara after a prolonged exile, Hodja Nasreddin finds his family gone, his home destroyed, and his city in the grasp of corrupt and greedy rulers who have brought pain and suffering upon the common folk. But Nasreddin is not one to bow to oppression or abandon the downtrodden.
The Letter Killers Club
By Sigizmund KrzhizhanovskyTranslated by Joanne Turnbull, with Nikolai Formozov
NYRB; 2012; pp. 123
ISBN 978-1-59017-450-0
The Letter Killers Club is a secret society of self-described “conceivers” who, to preserve the purity of their conceptions, will commit nothing to paper. Every Saturday, members meet in a firelit room filled with empty black bookshelves where they strive to top one another by developing ever unlikelier, ever more perfect conceptions: a rehearsal of Hamlet hijacked by an actor who vanishes with the role; a machine-run world that imprisons men’s minds while conscripting their bodies; a dead Roman scribe stranded this side of the River Acheron.
The Village
By Ivan BuninTranslated by Galya and Hugh Aplin
Oneworld Classics; 2009; pp. 200
ISBN 9781847491046
Ivan Bunin's first published novel, "The Village" is a bleak and uncompromising portrayal of rural life in south-west Russia. Set at the time of the 1905 Revolution and centering on episodes in the lives of two peasant brothers - 'characters sunk so far below the average of intelligence as to be scarcely human' - it reveals the pettiness, violence and ignorance of life on the land.At once nostalgic for a bygone more innocent age and foreshadowing the turbulences of the twentieth century, Bunin's narrative is a triumph of bitter realism, shot through with the author's classical style and precision of language.
Rasskazy Fiction from a New Russia
By Various; Edited by Mikhail Iossel and Jeff ParkerTinHouseBooks; 2009; pp. 375
ISBN 978-0-9820539-0-4
Rasskazy is a collection of excerpts and short stories set throughout Russia, and provides a more positive depiction of Moscow than last week’s Moscow Noir. This is completely different from other selections I’ve read from Russia, and much of it has a level of humor not always associated with Russian writing.
Fish: A History of One Migration
By Peter AleshkovskyTranslated by Nina Shevchuk-Murray
Russian Life Books; 2010; pp. 229
ISBN 978-188010062-2
In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera (“Faith” in Russian) from the steppes of Central Asia to a remote, forest-bound community of Estonians, to the chaos of Moscow. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration. Vera gains the nickname “fish” from her abusive husband, who feels she is cold and unfeeling.
Living Souls
By Dmitry BykovTranslated by Cathy Porter
Alma Books; 2010; pp. 439
ISBN 978-1-84688-098-8
Living Souls follows the lives of four couples struggling to escape the chaos and stupidity of the war around them: a teenage girl who adopts a homeless man, a poet turned general separated from his lover, a provincial governor in love with one of the natives, and a legendary military commander who is sleeping with the enemy. A wide-ranging work dealing with the ideas of language, power and national identity, Living Souls is a comic and thought-provoking novel with tremendous relevance to the present day.
The Good Angel of Death
By Andrey KurkovTranslated by Andrew Bromfield
Harvill Secker; 2009; pp. 376
ISBN 978-1-846-55117-8
When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kiev, he finds a book hidden within a volume of 'War and Peace'. His investigations take him to a graveyard, and more specifically to the coffin of a Ukrainian nationalist who died in mysterious circumstances and was buried with a sealed letter and a manuscript. Armed only with three cases of baby milk, he sets off on what turns out to be a very bizarre journey, meeting a host of unlikely characters along the way.
Nothing But the Truth
By Anna Politkovskaya: Selected DispatchesTranslated by Arch Tait
Harvill Secker; 2010; pp. 468
ISBN 978-1-846-55239-7
Anna Politkovskaya wrote for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta. She won international fame for her reporting on the Chechen wars. Nothing but the Truth is a collection of Anna Politkovskaya's best writing for Novaya gazeta, published between 1999 and 2006. Nothing but the Truth presents a solid overview of her highly professional reportage, and will also stand as a tribute to her matter-of-fact personal courage, disclosing information Anna Politkovskaya glossed over, or omitted completely, about the dangers she faced and the threats she received in the course of her work.
I Am a Chechen!
By German SadulaevTranslated by Anna Gunin
Harvill Secker; 2010; pp. 247
ISBN 978-1-846-55263-2
I Am a Chechen! offers a lyrical fusion of exotic legends, stories, and memories of Chechnya. Haunted by memories of the land he deserted, Sadulaev tells the stories of those who stayed behind. He brings to life his friends—now reduced to pieces of flesh—revisiting their first loves, their passion for rock music, their quests for martyrdom. I Am a Chechen! is an intensely personal journey through the carnage of the war, exploring the pain, the challenge, and above all the meaning of being a Chechen.
An Awkward Age
By Anna StarobinetsTranslated by Hugh Aplin
Hesperus Press; 2010; pp 153
Drawing the reader in to an eerie world, Starobinets blurs the boundaries between the real and the imagined, filtering sinister occurrences through the narratives of unstable minds. Her unsettling imaginative territory and the simplicity of her prose have drawn comparisons of Starobinets’ work with that of authors as varied as Kafka and Stephen King. An Awkward Age is a haunting and beautiful evocation of a society entering a new phase of its history, and an example of contemporary fiction at its finest.
Ice Trilogy (translations of the stories Bro and 23,000 only)
By Vladimir SorokinTranslated by Jamey Gambrell
NYRB; 2011; pp. 694
ISBN 978-1-59017-386-2
In 1908, deep in Siberia, it fell to earth. THEIR ICE. A young man on a scientific expedition found it. It spoke to his heart, and his heart named him Bro. Bro knew its purpose. To bring together the 23,000 blond, blue-eyed Brothers and Sisters of the Light who were scattered on earth. To wake their sleeping hearts. To return to the Light. To destroy this world. And secretly, throughout the twentieth century and up to our own day, the Children of the Light have pursued their beloved goal.
Daniel Stein, Interpreter
By LudmilaUlitskayaTranslated by Arch Tait
Overlook / Duckworth; pp. 409
ISBN 978-0715641637
Ludmila Ulitskaya’s “Daniel Stein, Interpreter” is already seen by many as the greatest Russian novel of our time; the story of a Polish Jew who narrowly escapes the Holocaust by working for the Gestapo as an interpreter. After the war he converts to Catholicism, becomes a priest, enters the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, and finally immigrates to Israel. Ulitskaya is hailed as Russia’s bestselling literary novelist, having written fourteen novels, three children’s stories and six plays.
The Coronation
By Boris AkuninTranslated by Andrew Bromfield
Orion; 2009; pp. 362
ISBN 978-0753826966
The seventh of Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin series, The Coronation was first published in Russia in 2000. Highly popular with fans, it was published in English in 2009. Grand Duke Georgii Alexandrovich arrives in Moscow for the coronation, with three of his children. During an afternoon stroll, daughter Xenia is dragged away by bandits, only to be rescued by an elegant gentleman and his oriental sidekick. The passing heroes introduce themselves as Fandorin and Masa, but panic ensues when they realise that four-year old Mikhail has been snatched in the confusion. A ransom letter arrives from an international criminal demanding the handover of the Count Orlov, an enormous diamond on the royal sceptre. Can the gentleman detective find Mikhail in time?
The Diamond Chariot
By Boris AkuninTranslated by Andrew Bromfield
Orion; 2011; pp. 502
ISBN 978-0297860679
The first of the interlinked plotlines is set in Russia during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Fandorin is charged with protecting the Trans-Siberian Railway from Japanese sabotage in a pacy adventure filled with double agents and ticking bombs. Then we travel back to the Japan of the late 1870s. This is the story of Fandorin's arrival and life in Yokohama, his first meeting with Masa and the martial arts education that came in so handy later. The shocking finale interweaves the two stories and ties up the series as a whole.
Squaring the Circle, Short Stories by Winners of the Debut Prize
By AlekseiLukyanov, Igor Savelyev, Denis Osokin, GullaKhirachev, PolinaKlyukina, Alexander Gritsenko, ArslanKhasavov, Oleg Zobern, Yuna Letts, Irina Glebova, Victor Puchkov, Olga YelaginaTranslated by Mariam Schwartz, Amanda Love Darragh, Anna Gunin, Nicholas Allen, Anne O. Fisher, Lisa Hayden Espenschade, Ben Hooson, Leo Shtutin, Muireann Maguire, Carol Yermakova, Jose Alaniz, Andrew Bromfield
Glas; pp. 304
ISBN 978-5-7172-0086-8
This anthology presents Russian prose by a new generation. The authors, who come from various parts of Russia, never lived in the Soviet Union. They are free of the Soviet legacy. They have no nostalgia and do not resonate to the sort of art that attempts to turn everything Soviet into vintage chic. Today an unusually gifted generation is entering Russian literature. Perhaps this change is an anthropological response to the difficult position of culture and literature. This new generation writing in Russian deserves great attention.
Off the Beaten Track: Stories by Russian Hitchhikers
By Igor Savelyev, Irina Bogatyreva, Tatiana MazepinaTranslated by Amanda Love Darragh, Arch Tait, Ainsley Morse & Mihaela Pacurar
Glas; pp. 202
ISBN 978-5-7172-0092-9
This book about Russian hitchhikers takes the reader along the endless roads of Siberia, the Urals, the Altai, Central Russia and beyond. In energetic and vivid prose they depict some curious Russian types, exotic adventures in places off the beaten track, and complex psychological relationships developing on the road. They call themselves “the last generation of free travelers in the world becoming increasingly more uniform and comfortable and therefore less interesting.” In via veritas is their motto. Jack Kerouac is their guru. Only on the road do they feel really free.
Mendeleev Rock: Two Short Stories from Debut
By Andrei Kuzechkin; Pavel KostinTranslated by Andrew Bromfield
Glas; pp. 350
ISBN 978-5-7172-0092-9
The action in Mendeleev Rock takes place in a typical provincial town in Central Russia and presents a gallery of recognizable modern-day types: radically minded youths, ruthless thugs, drunken intellectual, Christian sectarians, the local elite and failed fortune seekers. The hero is yearning for faraway glamorous cities and tries to find his identity. In search of positive inspiration, he visits all sorts of weird places including a religious sect and a local criminal gang.
“…Under the Scorching Sun of Life” Selected Poems
By Mikhail LermontovTranslated by Alexandre Kaluzhskii
Bank Kulturnoi Informatsii; 2009; pp. 195
ISBN 978-5-7851-0728-1
Alexandre Kaluzhski (b.1958) received in BA in English and German from the Sverdlovsk State Pedagogical Institute and his MA in English from the San Diego State University(2003) His original poetry is effectively scattered in various Russian periodicals, and so are his translations of other Russian and Americans poets. Alexandre Kaluzhski is a lyricist half of the songwriter dup East of E, whose songe "Gabrielle" won the Second Prize and applause at the prestigious annual Song Contest held by the San Diego Songwriter Guild(1999). He has lived in California since 1992, sporadically knocking writer's block off and teaching college composition in and around San Diego.
Pro Eto – That’s What
By Vladimir MayakovskyTranslated by Larisa Gureyeva and George Hyde
Arc Publications; 2009; pp. 170
ISBN 978-1-9046414-31-9
Nearly eight decades after his death, the poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky still remains one of the towering figures of Russian Literature. His long poem, Pro Eto, written in 1923, is a largely autobiographical work in which love, passion and politics intertwine, presented here in a powerful new translation. The bilingual volume also contains Alexander Rodchenko's extraordinary photomontages, reproduced in colour for the first time in a British edition which run throughout the text and illuminate Mayakovsky's narrative.
The Bronze Horseman
By Alexander PushkinTranslated by Alistair Noon
Longbarrow Press; 2009; pp. 20
ISBN 978-1-906175-12-2
"If the translation is a success it won't need an apology but i'll offer one here for any dissatisfied customers. Pushkin is an all-rounder, so I tried to make my compromises everywhere a little bit, rather than prioritise one particular aspect and make a huge compromise elsewhere." Alistair Noon
The Russian Version
By Elena FanailovaTranslated by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler
Ugly Duckling Presse; 2009; pp. 169M
ISBN 978-0939010-98-1
"Spanning almost twenty years, these poems document the growth of a poetics and a politics sculpted by—and at times against—the recent history of Russia, its violence, its ambitions, its intimacies. But it is also the slower-moving current of Russian culture, from its folk tales to Tarkovsky, that gives these pieces their human depth. From her early atmospheric, lyric work to the later, looser quotidian pieces, there’s a wry eye in action here, informed by a ruthless truthfulness, but also by compassion and empathy, and all beautifully translated with a commitment to sound and rhythms that seem to bring the original to the surface." —COLE SWENSEN
The Zoo in Winter
By Polina BarskovaTranslated by Boris Dralyuk and David Stromberg
Melville House; 2011; pp. 165
ISBN 978-1-935554-26-4
Opulent, playful, and sensual, Polina Barskova’s poems have earned her a reputation as the finest Russian poet under forty. While steeped in Russian and classical culture, Barskova’s work remains unmistakably contemporary, at once classic and edgy – always fresh, new and even startling. A major English-language event, this volume collects poems from seven earlier books as well as from her recent work, all previously untranslated into English. The Zoo In Winteris a remarkable menagerie of poems, of a strange and intoxicating beauty.
