The art of translation. Master Prize winners master it perfectly

MOSCOW. The best translators of foreign literature received the "Master" award.

The Guild of “Masters of Literary Translation” has been awarding the best in this field since 2006. The first winner of the “Master” award in the only nomination at that time was Anatoly Mikhailovich Geleskul. His translations of Lorca, Jimenez, Vallejo, Hernandez, Verlaine, Mickiewicz, Pesoa, Galchinsky are considered standard. He agreed with Chukovsky, who called translation art. He compared it with the transposition of a musical work from one instrument to another, preserving the originality and voice of everyone.

From the second season, the jury has chosen the winners in two categories - poetic and prose. A few years ago, the number of nominations increased. Now awards are also given to translators of children’s literature. The first laureates in this section were Lyubov Gorlina and Natalya Shakhovskaya.

On December 25, the results of this season were announced. In the category of “Prose”, a literary historian, translator, research fellow at the Institute for Higher Humanitarian Studies Vera Milchina became a laureate. The jury appreciated the translation of the experimental treatises of Honore de Balzac, “The Minor Troubles of Marital Life” and “The Physiology of Marriage”. The collection with notes, additions and clarifications was published by the New Literary Review Publishing House in 2017.

The last time translations of treatises were published in Russian 118 years ago. The predecessor of Milchina, who proposed the interpretation of these texts by Balzac, was Elizaveta Beketova, the grandmother of Alexander Blok. Thanks to her, readers became acquainted with the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Darwin, George Sand, Hugo, Maupassant and many other writers.

Milchina is not working with Balzac’s texts for the first time. Five years ago, the book of early Balzac “Code of decent people” was published, which has not lost its relevance to this day. Other, unknown to the Russian-language reader, works of the great Frenchman are waiting for their turn.

The singer, poet and translator Anna Gerasimova, known to fans of rock music as Umka, won the poetic nomination. The jury noted a brilliant translation from the Lithuanian book by Tomas Venclov, “Metelinga: Poems and More.” In addition to 66 poems, the book includes letters and memoirs of the poet, essayist, human rights activist, Brodsky’s friend Tomas Venclov.

The best in the Children’s Literature category was named Maria Lyudkovskaya for translating children’s books by Swedish writers Maria Kristina Gripe, Rose Elsa Lagercrantz, Moni Nilsson.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru