On 19 May 2017, former CEATL President and literary translator Ros Schwartz has received the John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence for achievements in the field of translation at a gala dinner at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (http://www NULL.iti NULL.org NULL.uk/) (ITI) presents this prize to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the world of translation or interpreting over a long period. For French to English translator Ros Schwarz this has included the translation of over 70 titles from fiction, drama and children’s books to graphic albums, as well as a number of non-fiction works.

Ros Schwartz

Ros Schwartz has translated a wide range of French and Francophone authors including Aziz Chouaki, Fatou Diome, Dominique Eddé, Hélène Gestern, Jacqueline Harpmann, Yasmina Khadra, Dominique Manotti, Julien Neel, Emmanuel Raynaud, Olivier Roy, Ousmane Sembène and Claudine Vegh.

She has produced a new translation of the classic favourite, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince (shortlisted for the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation in 2013), and is part of the Penguin Classics team re-translating the novels of Georges Simenon into English.

Recent translations include About my Mother, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Telegram; The Crime of Jean Genet, Dominique Eddé, Seagull and the forthcoming Stalin’s Meteorologist by Olivier Rolin, Harvill Secker.

Alongside her translation work she has served on bodies and committees of various literary and translation organisations including as Chair of the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (2000–9), Chair of the Advisory Panel to the British Centre for Literary Translation (2005–9), and Chair of English PEN’s Writers in Translation committee 2010–14.

Ros Schwartz has also contributed to books and written articles about the art of literary translation, and is co-founder and director of the literary translation summer school at City University: Translate at City.

In 2009, she was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature.