The Modernist Studies Association is excited to announce its short list for the MSA Translation Book Prize for a book published in 2024 or 2025. Many congratulations to everyone who published books in the last two years and to the finalists below.
2026 Book Prize Shortlist: Translation
WINNER: Maria Janion, The Bad Child: A Maria Janion Reader translated from Polish by Marta Figlerowicz (University of Minnesota Press, 2025)
An English translation of Maria Janion’s critical writings is long overdue, and Marta Figlerowicz has done a particularly excellent job in selecting, translating, and annotating this reader. Vital in Slavic Studies, Janion’s work is also of broader interest for complicating simplistic East/West binaries, departing from the tradition of Polish liberal emigré thought by critiquing the ideals of individualism and ironic detachment, and seeking to recuperate a culturally rooted socialism that would not feed nationalist fantasy. Meditating on the cultural hybridity that emerges from Poland’s liminal position in Europe, Janion’s writing weaves together reflections on repressed histories and collective trauma, pop culture, and desire. Figlerowicz has assembled an appealingly wide-ranging collection in both topic and form (a book excerpt, essays, and interviews), an inviting introduction to Janion’s work.
Ramon Gomez de la Serna, Morbidities and “The Concept of the New Literature," translated from Spanish by Nicolas Fernandez-Medina (Clemson University Press, 2024)
Nicolás Fernández-Medina’s rigorous introduction to and lucid translations of Gomez de la Serna’s experimental autobiography and literary manifesto bring two foundational works of Spanish literature to an Anglophone readership in complete form for the first time. Witty and sophisticated, Gomez de la Serna’s autobiography reflects on the image of the writer and absurdities of modern life, while his manifesto outlines a revolutionary path for world literary aesthetics. Fernandez-Medina’s elegant translation places Gomez de la Serna’s work at the forefront of global avant-garde and modernist innovation.
Ailton Krenak, Ancestral Future, edited by Rita Carelli, translated from Portuguese by Alex Brostoff and Jamille Pinheiro Dias (Polity Press, 2024)
Ancestral Future is a pithy and lucid work that shares with English readers the long struggle of the Indigenous Awakening Movement for civil rights. In addition to documenting the speeches of the renowned indigenous Brazilian thinker and activist Ailton Krenak, the book offers the possibility of alternative inclusive worldviews beyond the rigid perspective of global capital. As a translated work, Ancestral Future endeavors to question the task of the translator by embodying Krenak’s own philosophical vision, wherein the translated text emerges as a middle space that celebrates the equal partnership among speaker, editor and translators and acknowledges their worldviews.
Nominating Committee:
- Amr Kamal (City College of New York, CUNY) (Chair)
- Kasia Bartozynska (Ithaca College)
- Preetha Mani (Rutgers)
About
Every other year, the Modernist Studies Association seeks nominations for its Translation Prize, awarded to a work published in the previous two years. A panel of judges determines the work that made the most significant contribution to modernist studies. A book first published in another year will not be eligible for the prize. This exclusion applies even if a new edition (paperback or revised, for example) was published in the award year.
Please visit our Nominations in spring 2028 to recommend a book for the next prize (for books published in 2026 and 2027). Visit our Archive to see previous winners.