The Josef Jungmann Award for the best translation was won by Michal Ctibor, who newly translated the epic Aeneis by the Roman poet Virgil into Czech. German translator Michaela Jacobsen was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The award for extraordinary achievement under the age of 34 goes to Zdeněk Polívka for his work on Chris Panatier’s sci-fi novel called The Lacemakers.
The organizers from the Translators’ Village presented the award on Tuesday evening at the Goethe Institute in Prague.
The Aeneid in a new version by Michal Ctibor was published by the Argo publishing house last year. “Taking into the translation of almost ten thousand Latin verses requires courage, its completion requires persistence, and the success of such an undertaking requires erudition, philological solidity and talent. Given that Michal Ctibor has all the aforementioned prerequisites, we can read the Aeneid in contemporary Czech , in which flight meets austere grandeur and eloquence,” said the jury. According to her, the resulting translation is readable, comprehensible, and at the same time rhythmically fluid and free-sounding, while it does not depart from the original in terms of content.
Seventy-seven-year-old Michaela Jacobsenová, who received an award from the municipality in 2003 and 2013, translates fiction and poetry. For example, she translated the works of Ingeborg Bachmannová, Ilse Aichingerová, Günter Eich, Arno Schmidt, and older authors Karl Kraus and Max Brod into Czech.
According to the jury, Zdeněk Polívka, winner of the award for extraordinary achievement under the age of 34, made full use of the Czech language of today’s young people when translating the novel Šůraři to reinterpret the original expression of the “struck” protagonist of the work. “He then confirmed his translation skills by brilliantly inventing new words for Panatier’s interplanetary realities and by disciplinedly searching for the real names of dozens of strange animals and their bizarre bodily movements,” the municipality said. Šnůrara was published by Host publishing house.
Miroslav Tomek takes home the extraordinary creative prize for his translation of the novel Depeche Mode by the Ukrainian writer Serhiy Žadan. The creative prize was awarded to Michal Brabec, Jana Van Luxemburg, Alena Machoninová, Miloš Řezník and Ladislav Šenkyřík. The organizers dedicated the Krameriův vinš award to Monica Loderová from the program department of the Goethe Institute for her long-term cooperation with the municipality and support of translated literature.
The community of translators brings together translators of fine literature as well as theorists, critics and historians dealing with this field. Its mission is to defend the rights, promote the professional interests of the members and take care of the level and prestige of translation in Czech literature. He has been awarding the Josef Jungmann Prize since 1991.