Six translators representing four of the languages of south Asia have been selected for the inaugural PEN Presents, a new award for translation samples. The first issue of PEN Presents is a partnership between English PEN and the British Council.

This year’s shortlist of 12 included translators of books from Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Nepali, and Tamil across genres such as novels, short stories, and a memoir. It also featured five works by Dalit authors.

The winning translators and authors are:

  • Deepa Bhasthi, for a translation from the Kannada of Banu Mushtaq’s Haseena and Other Stories.
  • Gopika Jadeja, for a translation from the Gujarati of Umesh Solanki’s Transformations.
  • Kartikeya Jain, for a translation from Hindi of Chandan Pandey’s Songs of Glory.
  • Shabnam Nadiya, for a translation from the Bengali of Wasi Ahmed’s The Ice Machine.
  • Nikhil Pandhi, for a translation from the Hindi of Anita Bharti’s Chronicle of the Quota Woman and Other Stories.
  • V Ramaswamy, for a translation from the Bengali of Adhir Biswas’s Last Boy: An Untouchable Boy’s Classroom.

Preti Taneja, writer and co-chair of English PEN’s Translation Advisory Group, said that the samples “testify to the variety and quality of literature across India and the diaspora, and to the talent of the writers and translators creating it.”