Susanna Roth Prize 2023: Shift

For the 9th edition of the international competition for young translators the Susanna Roth Prize 2023 (CSR) a text from the book by Anna Beata Háblová: Exchange (published by Host, 2022).

The competition was announced through local CZCs and embassies in 17 countries: Bulgaria, Egypt, Croatia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Hungary, Poland, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovakia, and Ukraine; and for language areas: Germany, Austria, Switzerland together for German and Belgium, France together for French . The individual juries evaluated a total of 90 translations from 15 countries , with first place for each territory awarded to a total of 11 young female translators and 1 male translator .

The laureates (the Croatian winner unfortunately could not come to the Czech Republic) participated on Saturday, July 8, at the invitation of the organizers, Czech Centres and the Czech Literary Centre, in a full-day translation workshop at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Under the guidance of renowned translators Kateřina Klabanová and Blanka Stárková, they became acquainted with practical rules for the work and life of literary translators and engaged in a detailed analysis of the translated text. There was also a personal meeting with the author Anna Beata Háblová on the topic of her work and contemporary Czech literature. The following day, the CSR winners traveled to Olomouc, where, together with many foreign Czech studies scholars, they were guests at the Czech Studies Seminar organized by the Moravian Regional Library in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Palacký University in Olomouc from July 10 to 14.

About the author

Anna Beata Háblová is a writer, poet, slam poet, but also an architect and urban planner.

She has published poetry collections Kry (2013), Rýhy (2015), Do Not Turn Off (2018) and Do Not Tell Anyone About My Addiction (2020). She also published a popular science book Cities of Walls (2017) about the history and interpretation of shopping centers in relation to the city, followed by a title straddling the line between academic study and fiction Non-places of Cities (2019) about neglected, fleeting, and bypassed places. In recent years, she has contributed thoughts on architecture to Czech Radio. The novel Exchange (2022) is her prose debut.

Winning translators

Bulgaria

Ivalina Plamenova Ivanova (*2000)

She comes from the town of Cherven Bryag, where she completed her primary and secondary education. In 2019, she was accepted to university to study Czech studies at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. She is interested in literature, linguistics, and translation, and she practices dance. She would like to pursue a professional career in lecturing and translation.

Egypt

Dina Elsayed Ali Abdalla Elkerm (*1995)

She comes from the town of Shebeen Elqanater in Qaliubiya province. A graduate of the Faculty of Languages at Ain Shams University in Cairo, majoring in Czech and English. During her studies, she received a five-month scholarship at Charles University in Prague, where she focused on Czech for foreigners. She translated news on technical topics from Czech to Arabic for Al-Ahram newspaper, worked as an English teacher and customer service agent (Czech and English) at airports in Sharm El Sheikh and Marsa Alam. She enjoys learning foreign languages and discovering new cultures.

France

Barbora Tomisová (*1989)

A trained water management engineer. She spent her childhood in the Czech Republic, and at the age of 15 went to study in France, where she later found work and started a family. Today, she works on flood protection and the revitalization of watercourses in the Meuse basin in the French Ardennes. Although she uses both Czech and French daily, participating in the CSR competition is her first attempt at literary translation. It was an interesting challenge for her and a new opportunity to navigate between two languages in a different dimension than everyday life.

Croatia

Ivan Moharić (*1997)

A student of Croatian and Czech studies at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Zagreb. He started amateur translation a year ago. As part of his studies, he translated various genres but would like to specialize in translating epic literature. Additionally, in 2021, he began to explore gamification in didactics. In 2023, he participated in the scientific conference "Czech-in to Literary Culture" at Palacký University in Olomouc as part of the Erasmus+ BIP programme.

South Korea

Haeri Eo (*1998)

She was born in Gangdong-gu, Seoul. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the Czech Studies Department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, where she completed a four-year bachelor's program. In 2019, she received a Korean-Czech government scholarship and studied for a year at Charles University in Prague. She also worked part-time as an interpreter at the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Forum and at the Korean School in Prague 6. She is currently preparing for postgraduate studies in Czech language and literature.

Japan

Akane Komiya (*1987)

She was born in Tokyo, and in 2008 passed the entrance exams for Kyushu University, Faculty of Design, Department of Art and Information Design. During her studies, she became interested in languages, taught herself Czech, and later attended a Czech language course. In 2013, she went to the Czech Republic, where she completed a year-long intensive course at the Czech Language Institute. In 2015, she passed the certified exam in Czech for foreigners at the B2 level, and also the entrance exams for the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, in the Department of Czech for Foreigners. In 2016, she returned to Japan and tries to maintain her language skills. In the future, she would like to translate not only books but also subtitles for Czech films and series.

Hungary

Juhász E. Hajnalka (*1989)

She was born near Budapest, where she still lives today. She studied Italian and creative writing at the Faculty of Arts at Péter Pázmány Catholic University, where she also began to learn Czech. She continued her studies in Czech, which she has come to love, later on. Literature, art, and languages play an important role in her life.

Germany

Stefanie Bose (*1983)

She lives in Leipzig as a freelance translator and language and cultural interpreter for Slovak and Czech. After finishing high school, she completed a volunteer service in eastern Slovakia. She then studied West Slavic studies at the University of Leipzig, majoring in Slovak/Czech and ethnology. Since 2015, she has worked for the honorary consul of the Slovak Republic in Leipzig and, as part of the partnership between the cities of Leipzig and Brno, collaborates with both city offices and various cultural institutions. To date, she has translated general language and educational texts as well as Slovak literature.

Poland

Olga Dziub (*1998) She comes from Lower Silesia but has lived in Krakow for several years. She is a final-year master's student in Czech studies at Jagiellonian University. In her bachelor's thesis, she dealt with the topic of euphemization of death among native speakers of the Czech language. She is currently writing a diploma thesis on the translation of cultural elements in the Polish and Czech dubbing of the Shrek film series. Last year, she studied at UK in Prague and participated in a translation internship as part of the Erasmus+ programme. She is interested in literature as well as language – its past and future. In addition to her studies, she works in the HR department of the Czech team of an international company.

Romania

Ioana Bistrae

(*2001) A student at the Faculty of Arts of Bucharest University majoring in Czech and English, with Slovenian as a minor. She currently works for the contract team of the international company Philips in the financial consulting sector and regularly uses her knowledge of French. Among her other work responsibilities are teaching courses in English and Romanian for children. Last year, she received a scholarship for a summer school in Olomouc, where she completed a month-long intensive course in Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University.

Slovakia

Nina Šmeralová

(*1984) She was born and lives in Prešov in eastern Slovakia, but has Czech roots through her father. Since childhood, she has been drawn to Czech language and culture, yet she studied English and American studies at the Faculty of Arts of Prešov University. After graduating from university, she focused on translation from English to Slovak and teaching English at language schools.

Ukraine

Anna Kravchuk

(*1984) She was born in Kyiv, and obtained her secondary and academic education at the University of Slavonic Studies in Rivne, where she studied English and Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Philology. During her studies, she began working as a translator's assistant, translating texts of a technical and legal nature from Czech. After graduating from university in 2009, she began working independently, combining her freelance translation work with many years of experience in the field of visual arts. She currently lives in the Czech Republic, where she works as an external translator.

Photos from the workshop and the Czech Studies Seminar

Fotografie z workshopu a Bohemistického semináře