With translated works surging in popularity (Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp and Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand), three publishers are betting big on poetry’s borderless future. Three publishing houses, Giramondo Publishing (Australia), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK and Ireland), and New Directions (USA) have announced the Poetry in Translation Prize, a biennial award dedicated to spotlighting poetry collections by living writers working in any language other than English.
The prize offers $5,000 — roughly ₹4.2 lakh — split evenly between poet and translator, along with simultaneous publication across Australia, North America, and the UK. Submissions for the prize will be accepted between July 15 and August 15. A shortlist is expected in late 2025, and the winner will be announced in January 2026. The winning collection will be published in 2027.
Nick Tapper, associate publisher at Giramondo, said : “We are really pleased to join with our friends at Fitzcarraldo Editions and New Directions in this unique award, which brings poetry from around the world into English, and foregrounds the essential role of translation in our literature. Its global outlook will bring new readers to poets whose work deserves wide and sustained attention.”
The three publishers run two other awards: the Novel Prize (launched in 2020) and the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize.
“There is no other prize like this that we know,” says Fitzcarraldo Editions poetry editor Rachael Allen, adding that they will use the model of the already established Novel and Essay prizes.
Jeffrey Yang, editor-at-large at New Directions, echoed the excitement: “New Directions is super excited to make the leap from novel to poetry prize…with the hope of highlighting new work by living poets from around the world through the wondrous transformations of passionate translators.”
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