The Polish Book Institute

The nominations for the PEN America Awards have been announced. In the "Poetry in Translation" category, among ten nominated entries, a selection of poems by Marcin Świetlicki entitled Night Truck Driver, translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, can be found.

Nominations were awarded by a panel of judges consisting of Daniel Borzutsky, Marissa Davis, and Meg Matich.

The longlist of nominated books:

Lean Against This Late Hour, Garous Abdolmalekian (Penguin Books)
Translated from the Persian by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey

Raised by Wolves: Poems and Conversations, Amang (Phoneme Media)
Translated from the Chinese by Steve Bradbury

Sense Violence, Helena Boberg (Black Ocean)
Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson

Katabasis, Lucía Estrada (Eulalia Books)
Translated from the Spanish by Olivia Lott

Paper Bells, Phan Nhiên Hạo (The Song Cave)
Translated from the Vietnamese by Hai-Dang Phan

My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree: Selected Poems, Yi Lei (Graywolf Press)
Translated from the Chinese by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

Now at the Threshold: The Late Poems of Tuvia Ruebner, Tuvia Ruebner (Hebrew Union College Press)
Translated from the Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back

Night truck driver, Marcin Świetlicki (Zephyr Press)
Translated from the Polish by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Love Poems/Poemas de amor, Idea Vilariño (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Translated from the Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval

A New Orthography, Serhiy Zhadan (Lost Horse Press)
Translated from the Ukrainian by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin

Finalists for all book awards will be announced in February 2021. The award for the translator is $3,000.

Last year's nominees for the PEN Award for Poetry in Transtlation included Jacek Dehnel's collection Aperture translated by Karen Kovacik, Adam Zagajewski's Asymmetry translated by Clare Cavanagh, and Pan Tadeusz translated by Bill Johnston.