Vietnamese translator receives US National Translation Award

USA - Nguyen An Ly is the first Vietnamese to win the National Translation Award for Prose from the Literary Translators Association of America, on the morning of November 12 ( Hanoi time).

The translator won with the work Chinatown by writer Thuan, translated from Vietnamese to English. In addition to the certificate of merit, Nguyen An Ly received a prize of 4,000 USD. The representative of the jury commented: "Thuan's novel comes to readers through the melodious and captivating sentences of Nguyen An Ly".

Cover of Thuan's book "Chinatown", translated into English by Nguyen An Ly. Photo: New Direction

The work is An Ly's first English translation. The story in the novel   takes place over two hours, when the main character and her mother are stuck on a subway train because they suspect the train has been bombed. During that time, the character looks back on her life, from Hanoi (Vietnam), Leningrad (Russia) and then Paris (France). Interspersed with memories are love affairs, in which the haunting and tormenting story is about Thuy, a Chinese man.

Nguyen An Ly was born in Hanoi and currently lives in Ho Chi Minh City. She mainly translates from English to Vietnamese. She has more than 20 translations published under various pen names and genres, including Aleph (Jorge Luis Borges), The Remains of the Day ( Kazuo Ishiguro ), The Golden Sparrow (Donna Tartt), and Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood). Nguyen An Ly co-founded the non-profit literary forum Zzz Review .

Translator Nguyen An Ly. Photo: ALTA

The National Translation Awards (NTA) were established in 1998 by the Literary Translators Association of America to recognize English-language translators who have made significant contributions to literature. Since 2015, the awards have been divided into two categories, prose and poetry. This year's jury includes Natascha Bruce, Shelley Frisch, Jason Grunebaum, Sawad Hussain, and Lytton Smith.

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