The Society of Authors’ Translation Prizes 2012 were awarded on 4 February in a ceremony at King’s Place in London before an audience of 400 people.
The John Florio Prize for translation from the Italian – £2,000 awarded biannually – was won by Anne Milano Appel for The Scent of a Woman by Giovanni Arpino. Howard Curtis was commended for his translation of In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda, as was Shaun Whiteside for his translation of Stabat Mater by Tiziano Scarpa.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Prize for translation from the Portuguese, £3,000 awarded triennially, was won by Margaret Jull Costa for her translation of The Word Tree by Teolinda Gersão. Margaret Jull Costa was also commended for her translation of The Land at the End of the World by Antonio Lobo Antunes.
The Hellenic Foundation for Culture Translation Prize for translation from the Modern Greek, £1,000 awarded triennially, went to Avi Sharon for his translation of Selected Poems by C.P. Cavafy. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife was commended for her translation of A Short Border Handbook by Gazmend Kapllani.
The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for translation from the Arabic, £3,000 awarded annually, was won by Roger Allen for his translation of A Muslim Suicide by Bensalem Himmich. Humphrey Davies was commended for his translation of I Was Born There, I Was Born Here by Mourid Barghouti.
The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translation from German, £3,000 awarded annually, went to Vincent Kling for his translation of Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta by Aglaja Veteranji, and Ross Benjamin was commended for his translation of Funeral for a Dog by Thomas Pletzinger.
The Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation from the French, £2,000 awarded annually, was won by Malcolm Imrie for Fear by Gabriel Chevallier, and Giles MacDonogh was commended for his translation of Testicles by Blandine Vié.
The Bernard Shaw Prize for translation from the Swedish was won by Robin Fulton for his translation of Chickweed and Wintergreen by Harry Martinson. Peter Graves was commended for his translation of The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter Englund.