The MGSA is pleased to announce the 2013 Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize Competition for original, new translations into English of a literary work published in Modern Greek. A prize of $500 will be awarded for a piece of Modern Greek literature (poetry, prose, theatre) translated into English. We welcome work by scholars of Modern Greek and other fields and languages as well as creative writers, students, and anyone knowledgeable of Greek and English engaged in the work of translation. This competition is intended to raise the profile of contemporary Greek literature in English and to award translation as a creative, intellectually meaningful exercise.
Established in 1995 and administered by the MGSA, the Prize honors the memory of Elizabeth Constantinides (1932-1992 Ph.D. in Greek and Latin from Columbia University), who taught Modern Greek language and literature at Queens College of CUNY from 1978 to 1992, wrote on Alexandros Papadiamantis, and translated twelve short stories by Papadiamantis, published as Tales from a Greek Island (Johns Hopkins University Press,1987). Constantinides served on the Executive Committee of the MGSA and was awarded the 1987 prize of the Society of Literary Translators in Athens, Greece. The winner will be formally announced and congratulated at the MGSA 2013 Symposium of November 14-16, 2013 at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The MGSA Executive Director will mail the $500 award to the winner.
RULES FOR SUBMISSION:
- The translation must be from Modern Greek into English.
- The competition is open to any literary genre: poetry, prose, or drama. Excerpts from longer works will be considered.
- The Greek original must be published.
- The English translation may be either published or unpublished.
- Only one submission per translator is allowed.
- The submission should include a cover letter with the name of the author of the translated work, title of the translated work, name of the translator, postal address of the translator, and e-mail address of the translator – if available.
- The submission should also include a brief statement by the translator (no more than one page in length) explaining why the particular Greek text was chosen and what goals and/or principles were employed in the translation.
- The translator’s name must not appear on the translation itself or in the translator’s statement. It should only be in the cover letter.
- The translation itself must be typed, double-spaced in 12pt standard font (Times, New Times Roman, Palatino, Baskerville, Georgia), and printed on one side only of standard letter-size paper.
- The submission should not exceed thirty pages in length; this restriction also applies to lengthy novels and plays. A thirty-page chapter from a novel or a thirty-page act from a play is acceptable.
- Translators are not required to be members of the MGSA when submitting their work.
- Send one copy of the cover sheet and five copies each of the translator’s 1-page statement, English translation and Greek original to Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize, Modern Greek Studies Association, P O Box 945, Brunswick, ME 04011
- lternatively the translator may email as separate pdf attachments the cover sheet (with the translator’s name) and the file or files (without the translator’s name) of the translator’s statement, English translation, and Greek original.
- Please note that faxed submissions are not acceptable. No materials will be returned.
The submissions will undergo blind review. The MGSA Executive Director places the cover sheets with the names of the contestants in a sealed envelope during the process of review.
A committee comprised of five members chaired by a member of the MGSA Executive Board will evaluate the work between April 15 and May 31. Committee members include scholars, a fiction writer, a poet, and several translators, who together represent the genres that may be translated and have a strong knowledge of both Greek and English. They are not necessarily MGSA members. The chairperson of the committee is a voting member of the committee. Committee members are not permitted to submit their own work while serving on the committee.
Although it is difficult, and, perhaps, inadvisable, to establish streamlined criteria for translation, as much depends on the writing style and the degree of difficulty of the original, the committee will evaluate: fidelity to the original; command of English (structure, diction, and nuance); importance of the work as a representative sample of a literary period or movement or of the work of an individual writer; and the translator’s ability to provide cues in the translation itself or alternatively by way of footnotes, end notes, or introduction, when deemed necessary.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For queries/ submissions: mgsa.org@gmail.com
Website: http://www.mgsa.org
