Prizes of $5,000 awarded for translated Hungarian fiction, Romanian poetry

NEW YORK, N.Y. – An experimental Hungarian novel and a collection of Romanian poetry have won prizes for best English language translations.

Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s (LAHZ’-lo krahs-na-HOAR’-kay’s) “Satantango,” translated into English by Georges Szirtes (ZUR’-tes), won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction.

The poetry winner was Nichita Stanescu’s (neh-KEE’-ta STAH’-nes-koo’s) “Wheel With a Single Spoke,” translated by Sean Cotter.

Thanks to a grant from Amazon.com, winning authors and translators each receive $5,000.

The awards were announced Monday by Three Per cent, a resource for international literature that is based at the University of Rochester. The project is named for a widely reported statistic that only 3 per cent of books published in the U.S. are works in translation.