We inform you that the jury committee at the penultimate meeting for the awarding of the "Dragi" award decided in the third and last round of the so-called selection. shortlist to include 5 translators with publications published by three publishing houses and translations made from five different languages:
- Anastasija Gjurčinova for the translation from Italian of "Five Short Novels and a Few Stories" by Natalia Ginzburg, published by Artkonekt.
- Zlatko Panzov, 2023 – Zlatko Panzov for the Hungarian translation of "Captivity" by Gjerg Spiro published by Artkonekt.
- Ivan Šopov for the translation from Croatian of "On the Edge of Reason" by Miroslav Krleža, published by Begemot..
- Ljubica Arsovska for the translation from English of "Elizabeth Finch" by Julian Barnes, published by Artkonekt.
- Nikola Gjelinčeski for the translation from Spanish of "Presongs of postspanish and other songs" by Jorge Enrique Adoum, published by Alef publications.
Brief presentation of the five finalists
Anastasija Gjurčinova (1963) is an essayist, translator, and university professor. She works as a professor of Italian literature at the Department of Italian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" in Skopje. Her fields of interest include Italian studies, comparative literature, Macedonian studies, translation studies, and transcultural studies. She has published several monographs, edited several collections, and compiled two anthologies. She translates from Italian to Macedonian. For her translation work, she has twice received the "Golden Pen" award. She is a recipient of two orders from the President of the Republic of Italy.
Zlatko Panzov (1979) graduated from the Department of Macedonian Literature and South Slavic Literatures with Macedonian Language at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" in Skopje. He received his master's degree from the Institute of Macedonian Literature, Skopje. He is a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Literature at ELTE University in Budapest, Hungary. He works as a Macedonian language lecturer at the Institute of Slavic Studies and Baltic Philology, "ELTE" University. Since 2005, he has been actively engaged in literary translation. So far, independently or together with Annamaria Cinege-Panzova, he has published over thirty translations from Hungarian. Since 2019, he has been organizing the "Days of Macedonian Culture in Budapest" event. He lives in Hungary.
Ivan Šopov (1987) is a Macedonian writer and translator. He graduated from the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" – Skopje. He is the author of books of short stories, poems in prose, satirical texts, as well as poetry and haiku. His short stories and poems have been translated into English, Romanian, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, German, Slovenian and Bulgarian. Together with Vladimir Lukaš, he founded the mobile cultural center KC 750 in 2019. He worked as an editor in "Templum" and at “Okno”. He translates from Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian and English.
Ljubica Arsovska (1950) is a literary translator. She is the chief editor of the magazine "Cultural life." Translates from English to Macedonian and vice versa. So far, from English, she has translated the works of Julian Barnes, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, Arundhati Roy, Ian McEwan, Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams, and others, and from Macedonian to English Lidija Dimkovska, Liljana Dirjan, Risto Lazarov, Tomislav Osmanli. She is one of the founders of the Macedonian Association of Translators and Interpreters (MATA).
Nikola Gjelinčeski (1988) is a translator from English and Spanish into Macedonian and vice versa. He was awarded at the competition for the best young translator "Babilon" organized by the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Macedonia (МАТА) and the Delegation of the European Union. He is an active member of МАТА. He has edited numerous editions and performed proofreading and language editing of a large number of works. In addition to published literary translations, his translations of domestic and foreign authors are represented in several printed and digital literary magazines and platforms.
39 translators with books published by 17 publishers and two private editions were initially nominated for the "Dragi" award. 19 translators from 9 publishing houses and one private publication entered the first round. 10 translators and 7 publishing houses entered the second round. The jury is composed of Jana Mihajlovska (librarian and president of the Library Association of Macedonia; representative of the family of Dragi Mihajlovski), Lidija Kapuševska-Drakulevska (professor of the Department of General and Comparative Literature and literary critic and theorist) and Milan Damjanovski (professor of Department of English Language and Literature and Translator).
Cooperation with the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski"
It is with great pleasure that we can say that the initiative for this award, which until now has not been recognized by either state or local institutions, and even less from the private sector, received his first public recognition by the new dean's administration of the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" in Skopje. The faculty becomes a partner of "Anthologist" in organizing the award. For the organizer, this represents extremely important cooperation. Firstly, because Dragi Mihajlovski spent his entire working life at this faculty, and secondly, because the role of the Faculty in the creation of literary translators cannot be compared with the role of any other institution in our country.
Both parties decided that the announcement and awarding of the "Dragi" award will take place on October 2 at 2 p.m. at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski", with an appropriate ceremony in honor of the winner and the nominees.
Alexandra Ioanidou is coming to Skopje!
As it was announced earlier, on the same occasion, the international award "Dragi" for the most significant translation of a Macedonian author into a foreign language will be awarded to translator Alexandra Ioannidou for the translation of the book "My Husband" by Rumena Bužarovska into Greek. For this occasion, the personal presence of the translator during the "BookStar" Festival in Skopje has also been announced.
The prize for the best translation into the Macedonian language "Dragi" was established in 2022, and the first honorary award was given to Dragi Mihajlovski (1951-2022), a Macedonian writer, translator, essayist and university professor. Apart from his prose works, Mihajlovski left a lasting mark on Macedonian culture with the translations of works by Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Keats, Blake, Eliot, Milton, etc. He also published several studies and essays in the field of translation theory, and with his views on translation, he influenced the students of the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" in Skopje, where he was a professor.
