Publishers Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo Publishing, and New Directions have launched the biennial Poetry in Translation Prize for collections translated into English, which will award an advance of $5,000 (£3,700) to be shared equally between poet and translator.
The winning collection will be published in the U.K. and Ireland by Fitzcarraldo Editions, in Australia and New Zealand by Giramondo, and in North America by New Directions.
“We wanted to open our doors to new poetry in translation to give space and gain exposure to poetry we may not be aware of,” said Rachael Allen, poetry editor for Fitzcarraldo. “There is no other prize like this that we know.”
The prize announcement comes amid a sales boom in translated fiction in the U.K. Joely Day, who works as a co-editor with Allen at Fitzcarraldo, believes “the space that the work of translators has opened in the reading lives of English speakers through the success of fiction in translation will also extend to poetry.”
The prize seeks to find works “which are formally innovative, which feel new, which have a strong and distinctive voice, and which surprise, energize, and move us,” said Day. “My personal hope is that the prize reaches fledgling or aspiring translators and provides an opening for them, and that it enables translators of poetry in particular to find a platform and encourages translators who want to work with poetry to do so.”
The Guardian (6/24/25) By Ella Creamer