Sarah Maguire Prize Anthology 2022

This anthology features a generous selection from each of the six titles shortlisted for the Sarah Maguire Prize 2022. This thrilling overview of poetry in translation includes some of the most acclaimed poets and distinguished translators in world literature. Each selection is introduced by the book''s publisher and presented in a bilingual format.

Shortlisted titles

• Come, Take a Gentle Stab by Salim Barakat (Seagull Books)
  Translated from Arabic by Huda J. Fakhreddine and Jayson Iwen

• Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan Darwish (New York Review Books)
  Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

• Migrations: Poem, 1976–2020 by Gloria Gervitz (New York Review Books)
  Translated from Spanish by Mark Schafer

• Unexpected Vanilla by Lee Hyemi (Tilted Axis Press)
  Translated from Korean by Soje

• The River in the Belly by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Deep Vellum)
  Translated from French by J. Bret Maney

• Cargo Hold of Stars: Coolitude by Khal Torabully (Seagull Books)
  Translated from French by Nancy Naomi Carlson

About the prize

The Sarah Maguire Prize celebrates the legacy of the Poetry Translation Centre’s founder, a leading advocate for poetry in translation. The prize is awarded biennially to the best book of poetry translated into English from Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America, with the prize money split equally between poet and translator.

The Sarah Maguire Prize 2022 was judged by Rosalind Harvey, Kyoo Lee and Kit Fan.

"Translation is about movement and possibility, and these books all invite us to explore what that movement has meant and might mean. In a world full of endless stark opinions, where nuance often struggles to get a word in, of endless facts and ‘alternative facts’, these collections invite us to uphold poetry’s – and translation’s – innate open-endedness, its ability to allow for possibility, for multiple answers as well as questions."

- Rosalind Harvey, Chair of Judges