The Czech Literary Translators’ Guild, represented by a jury consisting of distinguished literary translators and hosted by the Prague Goethe-Institut, awarded its annual prizes of merit to the best translations published last year. The ceremony, commemorating the saint’s day of St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, celebrated its 20th anniversary and was held on October 6, 2011.
The prestigious Josef Jungmann Prize went to Petr Zavadil for his translation of Esta luz, collected poetry by the Spanish poet Antonio Gamoneda (published under the Czech title Tohle světlo by Agite/Fra, 2010), and his translation of Ninfa inconstante, a novel by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (published under the Czech title Přelétavá nymfa by Paseka, 2010). Both renditions evince Zavadil’s excellent artistic qualities in mastering translations of very different, and yet very demanding authorial poetics. Petr Zavadil works as a journalist and foreign editor of Czech Television.