This year’s ALTA National Translation Award has been given to a well-known translator of German literature, Joel Agee, for his translation of the Selected Writings of Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
A $2,500 stipend accompanies the prize.
ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association, held its 30th Anniversary Conference at The University of Texas at Dallas Nov. 7–10.
The ALTA conference was attended by 300 literary translators from North America, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. International writers, together with their translators, came from Europe, Russia, China and Mexico.
In 1999, Agee won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translation of Heinrich von Kleist’s verse play Penthesilea.
The Center for Translation Studies under the direction of Professor Rainer Schulte houses the national office of ALTA. Established in 1978, ALTA promotes the presence of foreign literature in the United States and cultivates dialogue among languages, cultures and literary translators.
Dr. Schulte is a professor in the School of Arts and Humanities, holds the Katherine R. Cecil Professorship for Foreign Languages at UT Dallas and founded The Center for Translation Studies in 1980.
According to Schulte, “Every act of communication is an act of translation. Our global world cannot live without translation.”
Media contact: Meredith Dickenson, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2293, meredith.dickenson@utdallas.edu