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Three Percent, University of Rochester (Open Letter Books) · award year

Best Translated Book Award 2008

The 2008 Best Translated Book Award went to Guantanamo by Dorothea Dieckmann, translated by Tim Mohr (Fiction). 13 books were finalists across 2 categories.

Winner

Fiction

  1. Guantanamo by Dorothea Dieckmann, translated by Tim Mohrsource (opens in a new tab)

Finalists

Fiction

  1. Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortazar, translated by Anne McLeansource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, translated by Kamran Rastegarsource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Montano’s Malady by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Jonathan Dunnesource (opens in a new tab)
  4. Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen, translated by Paul Verhaeghensource (opens in a new tab)
  5. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, translated by Anne Bornsource (opens in a new tab)
  6. Ravel by Jean Echenoz, translated by Linda Coverdalesource (opens in a new tab)
  7. Sunflower by Gyula Krudy, translated by John Batkisource (opens in a new tab)
  8. The Assistant by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofskysource (opens in a new tab)
  9. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, translated by Natasha Wimmersource (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. The Collected Poems: 1956-1998 by Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott and Alissa Vallessource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 by Peter Cole, translated by Peter Colesource (opens in a new tab)
  3. The Drug of Art: Selected Poems by Ivan Blatny, translated by Justin Quinn and Matthew Sweney and Alex Zucker and Veronika Tuckerova and Anna Moschovakissource (opens in a new tab)

About the Best Translated Book Award

Every winning, finalist (shortlisted) and longlisted book for the Best Translated Book Award, listed once per category at its highest level. Year is the award year. The award ran 2008-2020 and then went on hiatus, so there are no 2021 or 2022 awards. 2008 was a reader vote among Three Percent's top 10 fiction translations of 2007, with three poetry books named alongside; Wikipedia lists Guantanamo as the first winner. The 2008 list of 50 mixed fiction, poetry and essays is not included. Poetry had finalists only until 2014; poetry longlists start in 2015. 2008-2018 lists and 2008-2017 winners come from the Three Percent blog at rochester.edu, where besttranslatedbook.org now redirects. 2019 and 2020 lists and the 2018-2020 winners come from The Millions, which announced the BTBA lists. Obvious name typos on the source pages were corrected (for example Xue Can to Can Xue). Translators are joined with "and"; for anthologies the credited editor is the author.

Organization: Three Percent, University of Rochester (Open Letter Books). Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)

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