The Dinny O'Hearn/SBS Prize for Literary Translation: Shortlist 2003

Judges report

The judges chose works based on their universality of themes and references, and the literary qualities of the works. We judged not a piece of translation, but a piece of literature in translation. All the works selected had a personal odyssey as their leitmotiv.

In the original shortlist of works which were discussed we included also Innocence translated by Patricia Clancy and the book of poetry Kill the Radio translated by Harry Aveling. Two other books impressed the judges, And What About Anna translated by John Nieuwenhuizen and Secrets in the Fire translated by Anne Stuksrud.

Shortlist

By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano. Translated by Chris Andrews. (Harvill/Random House)
'…and little by little the truths begin to rise like a dead body...' This is the story of Father Lacroix, who enters into a Faustian pact, with Mephistophelian echoes of man's infinite capacity for self-delusion. Set in Chile, at the time of the Pinochet regime, this man of the cloth forswears his oath of faith for vanity and engages with the powers that be, choosing to ignore: 'the wizened youth' of his conscience and not to see the human catastrophe around him.

By Night in Chile is the narrative of a fall, punctuated by the blackest of irony expressed in symbols, showing the collusion between some members of the upper clergy of the Catholic Church, with the Generals. The book is a powerful expose of those who chose not to know.

Voyage to Desolation Island by Jean-Paul Kauffmann. Translated by Patricia Clancy. (Harvill/Random House)
 'The wild barren land called Desolation…' Voyage to Desolation Island is a beautifully written narrative of a journey the author made to the Kerguelen Islands 'inhabited by fascinating animals and…green as the meadow.'

This odyssey is a crucible of humanity's spirituality, knowledge, hopes, aspirations and ambitions, pitched against timelessness and unconquerable space.

Jean-Paul Kauffmann, the narrator, calls this land '…the most isolated spot on earth…and one of the last curiosities for a generation that flatters itself it has abolished time and space…an Eden razed to the ground and thrown in the sea [where] creation stopped at the fifth day, with the birds and the fishes…'

The story is not just a history of the efforts to conquer the land over the centuries, but also a quest to find a Utopia, to shelter from war and to seek answers in science. This is a masterful book, a combination of history, travelogue, philosophy and spiritual journey: finally, it is man's ultimate confrontation with himself.

Notes from the Esplanade by Igor Gelbach. Translated by Rae Matthews. (Brandl & Schlesinger)
Set in the Stalinian period in Russia, this novel is the journey of one man, attempting to write on the life of Einstein and who, in the process, understands the enigma of another life, that of his friend and mentor Abram Rubins, for whom history is 'a kind of theatre'.

The author, Igor Gelbach conveys the fragmented existence of Russian life, makes us aware of the heaviness of history and the permanence of fear in individual lives.

This elegant story weaves the thread of the past and the present together, meandering through many lives, times and places, to arrive at the crucial choices about truth and courage.