The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize Speech
St Anne's College, Oxford

The 2012 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize was awarded on Thursday 7 June in a ceremony at St Anne's College, Oxford. Led by the writer, critic and mythographer Marina Warner, the judges chose a diverse shortlist of six translators from more than a hundred submissions: John Ashbery for Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud (Carcanet), Margaret Jull Costa for Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga (Harvill Secker), Howard Curtis for How I Lost the War by Filippo Bologna (Pushkin), Rosalind Harvey for Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos (And Other Stories), Judith Landry for New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani (Dedalus) and Martin McLaughlin for Into the War by Italo Calvino (Penguin). Marina Warner's presentation speech is published below.


Being the ultimate arbiter was very hard and I can truthfully say that any one of these shortlisted books would make a splendid winner. I seriously considered throwing a dice. In the matter of competitions I am firmly with Lewis Carroll, and if I were making the rules, all must have prizes.

Before announcing the winner, I want to praise some aspects of the books and draw out some points.

First, the publishers - the several independents, long-established like Harvill and newcomers like Pushkin - make it possible for us to read these writers. They show generosity, boundless hope, gaming madness, industriousness and perseverance, and should be saluted. They also put paid to the idea that global corporate publishing combined with downloading from the internet is ...