Sensational news: Abolition : One Man's Battle Against the Death Penalty has been nominated for the prestigious Florence Gould Foundation prize for translation. The prize is organized by the French-American Foundation and recognizes the best fiction and non-fiction translations that appear in America each year. There is a generous financial award, which my weeping pockets would heartily embrace, but, more importantly, a victory would draw the American spotlight to Robert Badinter and his vital work. The awards ceremony is in Manhattan in May. All digits are crossed ...

Update: Less sensational news: We lost. I wish I could be magnanimous about this, but the jury screwed up on this one. They had chance to honour and promote the work of Robert Badinter - the greatest living Frenchman! - and they whiffed on it. Let's face the facts: Badinter turns 81 this year and might not have the chance to be honoured again; the winner, Michel Morange, is two decades younger and his life accomplishments pale in comparison. I am certain that Morange himself would admit that Badinter deserved this prize. And, remember, I say this because the Gould prize isn't based solely on literary or translation merit, but also on the opportunity to promote worthy French culture. If this was merely a literary prize, clearly the legacy of the author shouldn't be considered, only the quality of the book, and in this case perhaps Morange should have won. But this prize is about promoting important French culture in America. And Morange is more important than Badinter? I can't be more blunt here: The French American Foundation and the jury who judged this prize have failed miserably here and have betrayed the French culture they are supposed to champion. Shame.

THE SHORTLIST

The FICTION finalists are:

Alison Anderson
for The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery (Europa Editions)

John Cullen
for The Only Son
by Stephane Audeguy (Harcourt)

Jody Gladding & Elizabeth Deshays
for Small Lives
by Pierre Michon (Archipelago Books)

Douglas Parmée
for Afloat by Guy de Maupassant
(New York Review of Books)

Julie Rose
for Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo (Modern Library)

Roger Whitehouse
for The Beast Within
by Emile Zola (Penguin Books)

*due to tie in votes, the fiction selection garnered six finalists instead of five.


The NON-FICTION finalists are:


Ryan Bloom
for Notebooks 1951-1959
by Albert Camus (Ivan R. Dee)

Matthew Cobb & Malcolm Debevoise
for Life Explained by Michel Morange
(Yale University Press/Odile Jacob)

Janet Lloyd
for Comparing the Incomparable
by Marcel Detienne (Stanford University Press)

Jeremy Mercer
for Abolition by Robert Badinter
(University Press of New England)

Richard A. Rand
for Corpus by Jean-Luc Nancy
(Fordham University Press)

More on the Abolition translation *here*.

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