NTA Submission Guidelines
National Translation Award

Each spring, the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) invites publishers to nominate translations into English for consideration for ALTA’s National Translation Award. The winner will receive $5,000, and the award-winning book and translator will be featured at ALTA’s annual conference in the fall.

To be eligible, a translation must be:

• by an American citizen or U.S. resident
• from any language into English
• of a book-length work of fiction, poetry, drama, or creative non-fiction (literary criticism, philosophy, and biographies are not eligible),
• published anywhere in the world in 2011

The deadline for nominating books published in 2011 has been extended to April 1, 2012. Please send a letter of nomination, four copies of the nominated book, and a $50 entry fee per title ($30 if your press publishes no more than five books per year), payable by check made out to ALTA, or by credit card, to:

If a translation is chosen to go on to the second round, publishers will be informed by June 1, 2012 that they will need to send a copy of the original-language text (a print version or e-mail attachment) by June 15, 2012. Criteria for judging the award are (1) the importance of the translation and the literary significance of the original; and (2) the success of the translation in recreating the artistic force of the original. Translations of contemporary works are preferred, but important retranslations or first-time translations of older works will also be considered if they make significant contributions to international literature and its translation.

The National Translation Award supports ALTA’s goals of enhancing the status and visibility of literary translation and translators, of improving the quality of literary translations, and of broadening the market for works in English translation. Recent winners include such distinguished translators as Joel Agee (2007), Richard Wilbur (2008), Norman Shapiro (2009), Alex Zucker (2010), and Lisa Rose Bradford (2011).

For more information, please contact Maria Rosa Suarez at maria.suarez@utdallas.edu. We look forward to receiving your submissions.