Popescu Prize 2009 Submissions

The Popescu Prize is awarded every two years for the best volume of European poetry translated into English. It is administered by the UK’s Poetry Society and sponsored by the Ratiu Family Foundation, established by former Romanian politician Ion Ratiu to promote Romanian culture abroad. It is named after Corneliu Popescu, a young translator from Romanian into English who was killed in an earthquake in March 1977.

86 titles of poetry have been submitted for this year’s prize from all around Europe, from Austria to Wales. Top of the list for translated poetry are France, Italy, Romania, Russia and Spain, but there’s also poetry translated from Basque and Galician (two of the four co-official languages of Spain), from Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Turkey. A rich and enticing list!

Most of the time we complain about how little literature is translated and published in English, but seeing a list of 86 titles of translated poetry published in the last two years makes one feel like celebrating for once what does get published.

This year’s prize is judged by Elaine Feinstein and Stephen Romer and the shortlist will be announced in September.