https://www.bustle.com/p/the-national-book-foundations-new-award-for-translated-works-is-symbolic-of-a-greater-shift-in-the-american-literary-scene-8094395
...the National Book Foundation has announced that they would be adding a fifth National Book Award for translated fiction and nonfiction works published in the United States.
Pretty cool news (well, it's slightly stale news--looks like the article is a month old).
The additional guidelines for the new award, which will open for submissions in March, mirror those of its other National Book Award peers, — the work needs to be either newly on the market or as yet unreleased — with one clear distinction: both author and translator must be living at the time of submission, but neither needs to be a U.S. citizen. For every other honor that the National Book Foundation awards, authors must be legally "American." In an unprecedented move, the board, which unanimously voted to create a prize for Translated Work, has acknowledged both that English is not an exclusively "American" language, and that a person's citizenship is arbitrary in the face of artistic influence.
My favorite quote:
"Readers seem less terrified of translated books."
- Chad Post, publisher for Open Letter Books
Well, that's a relief! ?
[edited to fix quotes]
