The "Dragi" award for the best literary translation into the Macedonian language went to Anastasija Gjurchinova, for the translation from Italian of the work "The Intimate Life" by the author Niccolò Ammaniti published by "Antolog".
The commission for awarding the prize, composed of prof. Dr. Zorica Nikolovska, a representative selected from the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" - Skopje, Jana Mihajlovska, a member of the family of Dragi Mihajlovski and Vladimir Jankovski, representative selected by the publishing house "Antolog", there were five finalists for this award, in addition to Anastasija Gjurčinova, among the finalists were Gjoko Zdraveski for the translation from Croatian of "Three for Kartal" by Miljenko Jergović, published by Begemot, 2024; Ekaterina Babamova for the English translation of "Victory City" by Salman Rushdie, published by "Artkonect", 2023; Elisaveta Popovska for the translation from French of "A Girl’s Story" by Annie Ernaux, published by "Ilika", 2024 and Irena Jurčeva for the English translation of "The Silmarillion" by J. R. R. Tolkien, published by Publisher, 2023.
The commission unanimously decided to award the prize to Anastasija Gjurčinova.
- It is a translation that in a very subtle way retains the stylistic features of Nikolo Ammaniti's literary discourse, skilfully fitting them into the stylistic, lexical and syntactic possibilities of the Macedonian language. Anastasija Gjurchinova's translation is characterized by precision and fidelity to the original text, with great respect for the author's style. She skillfully conveys them cultural and linguistic nuances, maintaining the specific dynamics and literary tone of the work. Just as Ammaniti masterfully uses language in her works, Gjurčinova transposes that mastery in her translation. The text is clear and reads naturally, dynamically, without language barriers. Skillfully conveying emotion and atmosphere, the translation allows the reader to live an experience similar to what the original offers. As a consequence, the translation of "The Intimate Life" also causes great reader satisfaction - it is stated in the reasoning of the jury committee.
The award 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) - writer, translator, essayist and university professor. The purpose of the award is to stimulate translation activity and raise the quality of translated works in Macedonian culture.
The German professor and translator Benjamin Langer is the winner of this year's international prize "Dragi" for the translation of the novel "Pirej" by Petre M. Andreevski. The novel in German was published by the publishing house "Gugoltz" from Berlin.
- We will all agree that translating the novel "Pirej" into any foreign language is an extremely big translation challenge, which was also faced by this year's winner of the "Dragi" award, Benjamin Langer. It is obvious that for this large translation project he not only possesses excellent and nuanced knowledge of the Macedonian language, but also that he has thoroughly studied the historical and literary context, the linguistic specifics of the rural, archaic colorful Macedonian speech, and he offered creative German equivalents for the culturally connoted Macedonian lexemes. We would also like to mention that the attentive reader of this German translation by Langer can hear what in more recent translation studies is called the "translator's voice", which in this case masterfully mediates and bridges the linguistic and the cultural barriers between the two cultures: the German and the Macedonian - stands in the reasoning of the jury-commission.
Langer is a great connoisseur of the Macedonian language and literature. He studied German studies and art history in Bamberg and Budapest, and from 2005 to 2009 he taught at the Department of German Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology "Blaže Koneski" in Skopje. Through his translation work, he brought Macedonian literature closer to the German readership, which includes the works of Goce Smilevski, Branko Cvetkoski, Dejan Trajkoski, Rumena Bužarovska, Vlada Urošević and Petre M. Andreevski.
