For the first time ever, a Dutch novel has been awared the International Booker Prize. The Discomfort of Evening (Faber & Faber) by author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and translator Michele Hutchison has won this prestigious award. Rijneveld is not only the first Dutch author to be awarded this honour but also the first debut novelist and the youngest author ever to receive the International Booker Prize. The foreign rights to their novel have been sold to 21 countries, so far.

Leiden University Press is bringing out a new, unabridged, lavishly-illustrated edition of Huizinga’s study of life and thought in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in France and the Low Countries. We asked Diane Webb about her experience of translating this famous work.

Lampie by Annet Schaap and translator Laura Watkinson has been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. It is the first time ever that a translation has been shortlisted for this prestigious prize for children’s literature.

The Christoph Martin Wieland Translation Prize, worth € 12,000, will be presented to Eva Schweikart this autumn for her German translation of Lampje, a novel by Annet Schaap that has been published in German by Thienemann Verlag under the title Emilia und der Junge aus dem Meer. It is the first time that the biennial prize, presented since 1979 for works in a wide range of genres, has gone to the translator of a children’s book.

The shortlist for the European Literature Prize 2019 has been announced. Out of a longlist of twenty translated titles the jury has selected five from which the winner will be chosen. The prize will be presented 3 November 2019, during the Crossing Border festival in The Hague.

The jury of the European Literature Prize 2018 has announced that the award goes to Norwegian author Johan Harstad and his translators Edith Koenders and Paula Stevens, for the novel Max, Mischa & het Tet-offensief (Podium). The prize will be presented to the author and his translators on the evening of Wednesday 31 October at the Crossing Border Festival in The Hague.

Roel Schuyt (b. 1948) has been awarded the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s Translation Prize 2017. Since the 1990s he has translated work by a wide variety of writers from Central Europe, including Danilo Kiš, Dubravka Ugrešić and Borislav Čičovački, as well as young authors such as Goce Smilevski and Olja Savičević. He also wrote translation history by being one of the first to translate the work of Nobel Prize candidate Ismail Kadare directly from the Albanian. The prize, which includes the sum of €10,000, was presented in Amsterdam on Friday 8 December, during the Literaire Vertaaldagen.

The jury of the 2017 European Literature Prize has chosen to honour British author Max Porter and his Dutch translator Saskia van der Lingen for Verdriet is het ding met veren (De Bezige Bij), the Dutch translation of the novel Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. The author will receive a sum of €10,000 and the translator €5,000. Chair of the jury, poet and novelist Anna Enquist, will present the prize to Porter and Van der Lingen on Thursday, 2 November, at the opening night of the Crossing Border Festival in The Hague.

Great success for Madla de Bruin-Hüblová and her Czech translation Pole je tento svět of the Dutch novel The field by Dola de Jong. The novel is nominated for the Magnesia Litera Prize, together with work by Irish author Sara Baume, Tunesian writer Hédi Kaddou, and their translators. The classic The Field was rediscovered in 2015 by Amsterdam based publishing house Cossee, and will or has been translated into nine languages, including English, German, French and Swedish.

On January 1, 2017 nine European organisations officially launched the PETRA-E Network for the Education and Training of Literary Translators. The partners will expand, implement and further develop the PETRA-E Framework, the result of the successful Erasmus+ funded PETRA-E project (2014-2016), and will provide a collaborative space for the discussion of related topics.

Dutch author Edward van de Vendel, Flemish illustrator Anton Van Hertbruggen and German translator Rolf Erdorf have won a German Children’s Literature Award in the picture book category for the German translation (Bohem Press) of The Dog that Nino Didn’t Have (De Eenhoorn, 2013).

Today former managing director of the Dutch Foundation for Literature, Pieter Steinz received the very first copies of Der Sinn Des Lesens, the German translation of his book Lezen met ALS (Reading with ALS). It will be available in German bookstores mid July. Sooner than expected, as the title was announced for August. Thanks to translator Gerd Busse and to Reclam Verlag the production process was shortened.

Dutch author Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer will be on book tour in March visiting Washington DC, New York, Houston and Dallas to present the English translation of his novel La Superba. The book was translated by Michele Hutchinson and published by Deep Vellum.

On Friday 12 December 2015 Edgar de Bruin was awarded the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s Translation Prize for the translator as cultural ambassador. His oeuvre demonstrates his sharp eye for modern Czech literature; he has introduced writers including Petra Hůlová, Jáchym Topol, Patrik Ouředník and Markéta Pilatová to a Dutch readership.

The Belgian translation prize ‘Prix Scam de la Traduction littéraire’ has been awarded to Marie Hooghe for her translations from Dutch to French.

Die Jury des Else Otten Übersetzerpreises hat beschlossen, den Preis 2014 zwei Übersetzern zu verleihen: Bettina Bach für ihre Übersetzung von Hotel Linda von Arjan Visser, im Februar 2014 unter dem Titel Der blaue Vogel kehrt zurück erschienen bei Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag in München, und Rainer Kersten für seine Übersetzung von De laatkomer von Dimitri Verhulst, im April 2014 erschienen als Der Bibliothekar, der lieber dement war als zu Hause bei seiner Frau bei Luchterhand Verlag in München.

The shortlist for the European Literature Prize 2014 has just been announced at a festive gathering in Amsterdam. The jury selected five titles from a longlist of twenty translated novels. The European Literature Prize is unusual in recognizing both the author and the translator of the winning book. The prize will be presented on Sunday 7 September, during Manuscripta, in Utrecht.

Der VvL-penning 2014 geht an die Übersetzerin Andrea Kluitmann und würdigt ihr großes Engagement für das Übersetzerfach. Andrea Kluitmann setzt sich schon seit vielen Jahren für die Literatur und ihre Übersetzung in den Niederlanden ein. Als Mitglied im Beratungsgremium des Nederlands Letterenfonds in Amsterdam sowie des Expertisecentrum Literair Vertalen in Utrecht, als Mitbegründerin der Website Vertaalverhaal.nl, und nicht zuletzt als Mitorganisatorin der ‘Übersetzerglücktournee’ (Vertalersgeluktournee).

The Vondel Translation Prize 2013 has been awarded to David Colmer for The Misfortunates (Portobello Books), his translation of De helaasheid der dingen by Dimitri Verhulst. The award ceremony took place at Europe House in London on Wednesday 12 February 2014.

The longlist for the European Literature Prize 2014 has been announced: twenty novels translated into Dutch from no fewer than twelve different languages. A jury of Dutch and Flemish quality bookshops was asked to choose the best European novels in Dutch translation published in the past year. The prize is worth €10,000 to the author of the winning book and €5,000 to the translator.

This year’s Translation Prize of the Dutch Foundation for Literature will be awarded to Martin de Haan, literary translator from French to Dutch. The Prize, in recognition of his entire body of work as a translator will be awarded on Friday 13 December in Amsterdam.

The Vondel Translation Prize 2013 has been awarded to David Colmer for The Misfortunates, his translation into English of De helaasheid der dingen by Dimitri Verhulst. The jury was made up of British critic Paul Binding (Times Literary Supplement) and translators Sam Garrett and Paul Vincent.

Following years of effort by translator Gerd Busse, the first volume of Het Bureau has recently been published in German by C.H. Beck. This event has not gone unnoticed. The first discussions of the book have already appeared in Germany, and it seems to have been well received not only by the media, but also by readers.

Poet, writer and translator Francisco Carrasquer Launed, winner of last year’s Brockway Prize for poetry translators, passed away on 7 August in the Spanish town of Tárrega.