My translation of Miljenko Jergović’s Kin was awarded the prize for “Best Literary/Scholarly Translation into English” by the American Association for Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) at its just completely conference in Las Vegas. They don’t seem to have updated their website yet, but here’s the link for all the long- and short-listed books in all the categories. (Miljenko, if you are still reading this blog, congratulations on yet another prize for one of your novels!)
As I am still in the Adriatic working on my Sea of Intimacy, I couldn’t attend the awards ceremony, so I asked my colleague Elizabeth Geballe to deliver my thanks. She agreed (thank you, Professor Geballe!), but for whatever reason, the awards ceremony didn’t seem to allow for her to come up and give my thanks, so here’s what I asked her to read:
Apologies for my not being in attendance at this year’s conference and not being able to accept this prestigious award in person.
Kin is a long book that is still with me now going on three years after it was released—and I’m not just talking about the back ache. When you write a book, or re-write one in another idiom, ideas, characters, scenes, phrases, and sometimes entire story arcs imprint themselves inside you and come back from time to time. Some are not especially welcome, I have to say, but others are.
As reading the whole thing is quite a time commitment, and I know how busy everyone is, I’ll divulge that the parts of Kin that, when they come back to me, continue to be especially welcome are in the section called A Calendar of Everyday Events: Fictions. Five stories: “Christmas with Kolchak,” “The Match Juggler,” “The Bee Journal,” “Parker 51,” and “Sarajevo Dogs.” If you’re pressed for time, the translator recommends those. (It’s still 400 pages, mind you! And did I mention the back ache?)
I see translation as a gift, one I receive, and one I give to others. Receiving this award is, therefore, a gift upon a gift.
Thank you sincerely to AATSEEL and to the judges, who read. And read. And read.
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Russell Scott Valentino 