The winners of the Translated Book of the Year competition organized by the Lithuanian Literature Translators’ Union (LLVS) have been determined.
This is stated on the LLVS website.
Fiction
The best-published book in the fiction category was Georges Perec’s magnum opus Life: A User’s Manual (Gyvenimas vartojimo instrukcija), translated by Akvile Melkunaite, Lapas Publishing House. The novel was published in the original language in 1978 and is considered a literature classic.
Non-fiction
The non-fiction nomination was won by the historical novel Red Famine: Stalin’s War Against Ukraine by Anne Applebaum, translated from English by Jolita Parvickienė, Tyto alba Publishing House.
Children’s and youth literature
The best-published book in children’s and young adult literature is the sequel to Jakob Wegelius’s novel The Killer Monkey (Žudiko beždžionė), translated from the Swedish by Raymond Jonkute, published by Aukso žuvys Publishing House.
“The year 2023 surprised us with a special harvest of translated literature for children and young people and gave us a surprise: it seems that for the first time, a ‘representative’ of literary classics becomes the translated book of the year – Georges Perec’s novel Life: A User’s Manual is an incredible pleasure for a connoisseur of the classics, but, admittedly, a nightmarishly difficult job for its translators. In the non-fiction category, readers mostly chose Ann Applebaum’s historical study Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, which clearly shows what topics are interesting and relevant to readers today,” said Paulus Garbaciauskas, LLVS representative and competition coordinator.
Experts in fiction and non-fiction:
- Vytautas Bikulcius;
- Lina Buivydaviciute;
- Jurate Čerskutė;
- Dovilė Kuzminskaitė;
- Donatas Puslis.
Experts in children’s and youth literature:
- Egle Balutaviciute;
- Aiguste Vikantė Bartkūtė;
- Inga Mitunevičiūtė.
The Translation Book of the Year contest and the activities of the Lithuanian Translators’ Union are funded by the Lithuanian Council of Culture.
