Current Writing Program student Aziza Kasumov has been awarded the 2022 World Literature Today Student Translation Prize for best literary translation of a prose piece.
The World Literature Today Student Translation Prize is an annual award that honors the accomplishments of translation studies students worldwide. Candidates submit a prose piece of up to 1,000 words or up to three poems that have been translated into English, as well as a professional cover letter that includes a sponsoring faculty member from the student’s translation studies program. The editors of World Literature Today magazine judge the entries, awarding two student translators awards for best prose and poetry translation.
“This prize continues to attract some of the most talented young translators anywhere,” Robert Con Davis-Undiano, World Literature Today’s Executive Director, said in an official statement. “WLT will continue to take the lead to highlight the work of young people in the field who need a boost to reach the top in the publishing world.”
This year, Kasumov was awarded the prize in the prose category in recognition of her translation from the German of an excerpt from the opening chapter of Macht und Widerstand (Power and Resistance) by Bulgarian German author Ilija Trojanow. Kazumov’s faculty sponsor for her submission was Associate Professor Susan Bernofsky. In addition to being awarded a cash prize, Kasumov’s translation was also published on the WLT website.
Aziza Kasumov grew up in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany, but has spent the past eight years of her life in the US, first in Los Angeles, then in New York. She studied international relations and journalism at the University of Southern California and worked as a reporter for news organizations on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Financial Times and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction writing at Columbia University.
