French Lecturer Samuel Martin’s Translation Shortlisted for the French-American Foundation’s Annual Translation Prize–UPDATE

On March 15, the French-American Foundation announced its shortlist of ten fiction and nonfiction titles for its 31st annual Translation Prize program. For the first time this year, the award for translated literature will honor both the book’s author and translator, which according to organization, aims “to broaden readership for global voices and spark dialog around international stories.”

This announcement comes as a significant one for the Penn community, as the shortlisted non-fiction title, Bark (MIT Press, 2017), was translated by Penn’s own Samuel E. Martin, French and Francophone Studies Lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages. Bark is a photographic and literary essay by French philosopher and art historian, by Georges-Didi Huberman. The work, comprised of 10,000 words and 19 photographs, documents Didi-Huberman’s visit to the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 2011. The book’s juxtaposition of text and images emphasizes, according to the publisher, “the tension between individual acts of looking and the construction of collective memory.”

Bark, along with each of the short-listed titles, can be found in the Penn Libraries’ collections via Franklin.

We congratulate Samuel on this significant accomplishment and wish him the best as the winners are announced in May!

UPDATE– Samuel Martin was awarded the 31st Annual French-American Foundation Translation Prize on May 11th, 2018. Congratulations to Dr. Martin on this extraordinary accomplishment!