A University of Aberdeen senior lecturer will this week help decide the winner of the Popescu Prize for Poetry in translation, sponsored by the Poetry Society.
Dr David Wheatley, a lecturer within the English Department, was invited onto the judging panel by director of the Poetry Society, Judith Palmer, and alongside fellow judge, Karen Leeder, will announce the 2013 winner at a ceremony held at Europe House in London on Friday (November 29).
For his role on the panel, Dr Wheatley spent the summer reading 80 books of poetry in translation.
Speaking about the experience, he said: “I was delighted to be asked to judge this prestigious competition. The calibre of entries was extremely high and picking a winner out of the shortlisted seven has been very challenging.
“I have found this role to be a very educational experience, putting me in touch with what poets in from other cultures are doing and bringing home to me the centrality of translation as a tool of exchange in the life of poetry and, indeed, all modern culture.”
Organised by the Poetry Society, the £1,000 prize is awarded biennially to the translator of a book
of poetry translated into English from another European language. The 2013 shortlist has been
selected from a total of 79 submitted titles which represented 26 languages.
The shortlist is made up of:
Ciaran Carson, for In the Light of: after Illuminations, Arthur Rimbaud, pub The Gallery Press (from French)
Henry Israeli (plus additional translators), for Haywire: New & Selected Poems: Luljeta Lleshanaku, pub Bloodaxe (from Albanian)
Ilmar Lehtpere, for 1001 Winters: Kristiina Ehin, pub Bitter Oleander Press (from Estonian)
Peter Manson, for The Poems in Verse: Stéphane Mallarmé, pub Miami University Press (from French)
Patrick McGuinness, for Seizing: Places: Hélène Dorion, pub Arc Publications (from French)
Alice Oswald, Memorial: “An Excavation of the Iliad”, Homer, pub Faber (from Greek)
Lorna Shaughnessy, The Disappearance of Snow: Manuel Rivas, pub Shearsman (from Galician)
At the event, the judges will give a short talk about translation, and extracts from all the shortlisted collections will be read.