2022 Jawad memorial prize
The fifth Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English translation, 2022
IS CLOSED!
Ali Jawad Zaidi (1916-2004) was an Urdu poet and polyphonic scholar. He wrote several books of ghazals and nazms apart from scholarly works such as 'A History of Urdu Literature', 'Uttar Pradesh ke Marsiyago' and several others. He also wrote commentary on a wide range of cultural themes, publishing significant books like 'Do Adbi School' and 'Islami Taraqqi Pasandi. He had been honoured with several awards including the Padmashri, the Ghalib Award, the Mir Anis award and others. He had been working on a project he called 'Urdu mein Ramkatha' when he passed away.
The Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English translation has been instituted to honor his literary legacy and especially the fact that much of his work served as a bridge between languages, cultures, and histories. It is our hope and endeavor that the prize will serve to continue his life's work in a small way. The prize is not restricted to genre and has been offered for short fiction as well as non-fiction in previous years.
The joint winners of the 2021 Jawad Memorial Prize for the translation of a single short story are Aalim Akhtar and Bilal Tanweer.
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We return to short stories for 2022-23. Translators residing anywhere in the world are invited to submit (unpublished) translations into English of an already published Urdu short story. The winner gets INR 25,000 (USD $350) and a certificate, and the runner-up gets INR 10,000 (USD $150) and a certificate. Submissions are judged blind. Please read the rules carefully before submitting.
We encourage all scholars and translators to submit and spread the word. The deadline is September 30, 2022.
Details and Rules:
Translators are invited to submit translations into English of a single (already published) Urdu short story.
There is no word limit but this is a short story prize. Anything over 10,000 words is considered a novella, so please avoid stories above a certain length.
The original story in Urdu must either be free of copyright claims (65 years after the death of the author) or the translator must obtain the Urdu author's permission before submitting the story and should be able to furnish proof of this if asked to do so.
Please upload your submissions with 'Jawad Memorial Prize Submission' in the subject field.
Translators can submit more than one entry.
The judges will not be announced beforehand. Submissions are judged blind, so please do not write your name anywhere on the document submitted.
The document must be an attachment with either a .doc or .rtf file. The author's name must be mentioned in the document, but not the translator's name.
The translator's name should be mentioned in the body of the email.
The winning entries will be announced on or before January 1, 2023. (Please note that there will not be an award ceremony. The winners will be contacted individually and awarded their respective prizes.)
The decision of the judges is final.
The winning story, and the runner-up, must be available for publishing on the website as well as any other media platform for publicity purposes