'War and Turpentine' shortlisted for Best Translated Book Awards

Ten works of fiction and five poetry collections remain in the running for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards, an American literary award that recognizes the previous year's best original translation into English. War and Turpentine, written by Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay and in the U.S. published by Pantheon, is one of the finalists. The winning authors and translators, each receiving $5,000 cash prizes, will be announced on May 4th.

The fifteen finalists for this year’s awards are translated from nine different languages and thirteen different countries. A third of the books are written by women, and fourteen different presses have a book on the list.

On the awards' weblog, all thirty-five shortlisted titles are being reviewed in a Why This Book Should Win series. Lori Feathers, co-founder of Interabang Books in Dallas, TX, on 'War and Turpentine': "It deserves the Best Translated Book Award because it expresses so well the bittersweet regret of coming to fully appreciate the depths of another, but reaching that point only after it’s too late."

With this nomination, the successful journey of War and Turpentine into the English-speaking world continues. It was also longlisted for The Man Booker International Prize 2017, after being named ‘One of the ten best books of 2016’ by The New York Times and ‘a future classic’ by The Guardian.

Meanwhile, David McKay is already translating Stefan Hertmans’ latest novel The Convert, that recently came out in Germany (translated as ‘Die Fremde’ by Ira Wilhelm). ‘The Convert’ is both a love story and a historical novel about religious wars, refugees and violence causing chaos in medieval Europe.