ENGLISH ACADEMY AWARDS IN 2011 - Call for Entries

OLIVE SCHREINER PRIZE

The prize is awarded for original literary work in English. It is expressly intended as encouragement for a writer who has produced work of great promise, but cannot yet be regarded as an established novelist, short story writer, poet or playwright. It is conferred for excellence in prose, poetry and drama, and devoted to one of these categories each year. In 2011 it will be awarded for DRAMA.

Entries are invited for the prize from publishers and/or authors who have published plays during 2008, 2009 and 2010. Plays of two or more acts (alternatively, two one-act plays) which have been published and/or performed in South Africa by a recognized theatre group or company (amateur or professional) will be accepted. Radio and television plays are also eligible. The length of the stage plays should be such as to provide a substantial evening’s entertainment in the theatre; radio and TV plays should take up to approximately one hour (or two half hours) of viewing or listening time. Typescripts of plays which have been produced must be accompanied by all relevant details (where and when produced, name of producer and theatre company, copies of programmes and reviews, etc.).

SOL PLAATJE PRIZE

The prize is awarded for excellence in translation of a literary text of at least 1 000 words (except in the case of poetry which is, of necessity, exempt from the length criterion) in one of the other official South African languages into English. The English text must represent a reasonably accurate translation of the original, while standing as a well expressed literary text in and of itself.

The translation must have been published in 2009 or 2010. One published copy of the original work and one published copy of the translation must be submitted.

The purpose of the prize is to encourage effective mutual understanding in our multilingual country.

THOMAS PRINGLE AWARDS

The awards are for various achievements, attention being turned to three different categories each year. Below are the three areas for achievement which will be honoured in 2011:

• Reviews of plays, books, films, art exhibitions, radio or television programmes published in newspapers and magazines during 2011 (Ideally, a portfolio of work should be submitted).
• Poems in journals and magazines published in 2009 and 2010
• Articles on English in education and the teaching of English published in journals in 2009 and 2010.

Entries for these prizes are invited from editors of journals, magazines and newspapers as well as from individual authors. Entries published in online newspapers, magazines or journals are also eligible, as long as they were published within the years under review. Details of such publication must be provided.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Works submitted must have been written by a resident of a Southern African country and published in Southern Africa.

More than one entry by the same author may be accepted. There is no entry form. However, all entries must be accompanied by a covering letter listing the entries and providing the full contact details of the entrant.

Three copies of each entry must be submitted, excerpt in the case of the Sol Plaatje Prize (see specifications above). All entries must be sent to the Academy’s Administrative Officer at P O Box 124, Wits, 2050.

Works submitted will be acknowledged but cannot be returned.

Each winner will receive a cash prize and a certificate.

DEADLINES

Thomas Pringle Award for Reviews only – 30 June 2011

All other awards – 31 May 2011

For more information, please contact Naomi Nkealah on 011 717 9339 or at englishacademy@societies.wits.ac.za

Notes about translating

At the AGM meeting of IBBY SA (7 August), Wendy Hartman, (Author) and Marjorie van Heerden (Illustrator) of Nina and little Duck [2008 MER award - winning book] were invited to talk about their writing and illustrating the book. With them to talk about translating Nina and Little Duck into Afrikaans was Johann van Heerden.

Here are a few notes about translating Nina and little Duck [2008 MER award - winning book], the translator Dr Johann van Heerden gave the members of IBBY South Africa at their annual general meeting in Cape Town. The notes below were e-mailed to the IBBY SA chairperson after the AGM:

"A reminder: In the little 5-minuter I shared with members at IBBY SA‘s AGM on 7 August, I tried to underline five points: 1) My love of words - whether reading, writing or translating them; 2) The fact that I now find myself on permanent holiday, that my time is not for sale any more (at any price) and that this kind of translation (Nina and Little Duck) I do for the sheer pleasure of playing with words for the benefit of really young readers/listeners. And what that means... 3) The value of translated works, a) from foreign languages, like (for most of us in the room) Russian and b) from not-so-foreign languages (like English for most Afrikaans-speakers) and specifically for young (often still unilingual) kids to gain access to a gem like Nina en Eendjie in their mother tongue; 4) The stunning experience Uys Krige shared with me when he was confronted with translating Twelfth Night into Afrikaans and he sat down with sharpened pencil to be challenged with the opening line “If music be the food of love, play on”!; and 5) The two metaphors that haunt me every time I sit down to translate some author’s treasured words into another language:

The first (Cervantes: “...the reverse side of a tapestry...”) I find very applicable to the translation of prose, generally: Cervantes is telling us that (with the exception of Greek and Latin, whose classical beauty cannot be ruined by even a bad translation), the challenge to translators is to keep their finished product from looking like the reverse side of a Flemish tapestry, with its negative images and loose threads. "Pero con todo eso, me parece que el traducir de una lengua en otra, como no sea de las reinas de las lenguas, griega y latina, es como quien mira los tapices flamencos por el revés: que aunque se veen las figuras, son llenas de hilos que las escurecen, y no se veen con la lisura y tez de la haz." (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra).

And the second (Bialik: “...kissing your bride through the veil...”) has more direct application to the little verses in Nina and Little Duck (and also those Bertolt Brecht songs I translated for my stagings of the two Parabelstücke years ago). Bialik stated that, “Reading the Bible, and more specifically the Psalms, in translation, is like kissing your bride through a veil.” He was really referring to the more poetic passages in the original languages of the Bible.

And then, to try and illustrate that feeling of kissing a beautiful woman through a veil, I read aloud Wendy’s originals and my translations of a couple of the Nina verses, the two at the end of the second story, Little Duck:

Tomorrow with a bit of luck,
I will be a yellow duck.
I will swim and I will quack,
I will waddle there and back.
Tomorrow with a bit of luck,
I will be a yellow duck.

Môre, voor die son opkom,
Wil ek uit dié dop uitkom.
Ek wil graag aan Mamma raak,
Waggel-swem en waggel-kwaak.
Môre, voor die son opkom,
Wil ek uit dié dop uitkom.

Tomorrow morning there will be,
Brand-new ducklings, one, two, three.
Tomorrow seems so far away,
I wish tomorrow were today.

Môre is daar nuwe eendjies,
Een, twee, drie, op waggelbeentjies.
Hoekom nog tot môre wag?
Ek wens so môre was vandag.

You the chairperson, Robin Malan) suggest “a few words about how you went about that particular bit of translation”. That’s tricky. In a case like this, a very sensitive little verse in the first person singular, for very sensitive young readers/listeners, my guiding light is to try and stay true to the character of the speaker. In the first verse above it is the little chick pecking a hole from inside the shell before emerging into the world. In the second the mother duck is impatient for her little ones to emerge. These are feelings and emotions the target audience is familiar with. I want them to tune in to the words, to enjoy them and hopefully, to remember some of them. Marjorie once wrote that the biggest compliment she could ever get is for some young reader to sleep with one of her books under his or her pillow. I think I would be thrilled if I heard a three-year old, impatient before Christmas or a birthday, quote those words, Hoekom nog tot môre wag? Ek wens so môre was vandag."

At the same meeting Marjorie van Heerden gave a 10 minute talk on illustrating Nina and little Duck.
The Mind of an Illustrator: illustrating Nina and Little Duck
(if you want to read what she said - click on the title)