Migratory Birds Wins PEN Translation Prize
At the 2022 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony, Julia Sanches was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Migratory Birds by Mariana Oliver. The PEN Translation Prize, judged this year by Almiro Andrade, Mayada Ibrahim, Barbara Ofosu-Somuah, and Sharon E. Rhodes, is awarded annually in recognition of a book-length work of prose translated from any language into English. From the judges’ citation:
In her Spanish to English translation of Mariana Oliver’s Migratory Birds, Julia Sanches deftly captures Oliver’s grappling with the betweenness of language and translation, and the artful simplicity of the author’s poetic prose comes across beautifully. Our era is rife with nationalistic sentiment based on the idea that a given person belongs to a singular place, that to be stationary is the only right way to be and that to migrate is essentially criminal. Oliver’s probing of this thought extends to languages as well as physical places. As she writes, “authors who write in languages that are not their own are frequently interrogated about their motivations, as though words were also private property. […] Perhaps people believe deep down that authors who do not write in the language of their mothers are taking something that is not theirs, that they are writing where they don’t belong, that they are word thieves.” There are plenty of historical references to contradict this notion, to suggest, indeed, that migration is as natural to humans as to so many species of birds, but we have never before read such a light yet profound illustration of this principle as in Migratory Birds, brought to new audiences in Sanches’ outstanding translation.
Julia Sanches
Other finalists for the Translation Prize this year include FEM by Magda Cârneci (Deep Vellum), translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter; New Year by Juli Zeh (World Editions), translated from the German by Alta L. Price; The Last One: A Novel by Fatima Daas (Other Press), translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud; and Kaya Days: A Novel by Carl de Souza (Two Line Press), translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman.
About Migratory Birds
In her prize-winning debut, Mexican essayist Mariana Oliver trains her gaze on migration in its many forms, moving between real cities and other more inaccessible territories: language, memory, pain, desire, and the body. With an abiding curiosity and poetic ease, Oliver leads us through the underground city of Cappadocia, explores the vicissitudes of a Berlin marked by historical fracture, recalls a shocking childhood exodus, and recreates the intimacy of the spaces we inhabit. Blending criticism, reportage, and a travel writing all her own, Oliver presents a brilliant collection of essays that asks us what it means to leave the familiar behind and make the unfamiliar our own.
Migratory Birds is part of the Undelivered Lectures series from Transit Books.