You’re invited to the livestream of the 2025 Ottaway Award ceremony! Join us for a laudation by Alane Salierno Mason, followed by remarks by award winner Christopher Merrill. The recording will be available to view on our YouTube channel after the event.
“As we celebrate the twelfth anniversary of the Ottaway Award, we are particularly delighted to recognize Christopher Merrill and the vital work he has done to promote international literature as director of the IWP over the past quarter century.”
—Samantha Schnee, translator and WWB board chair
Named in honor of the first chair of Words Without Borders, Jim Ottaway, Jr., the Ottaway Award recognizes an individual whose work and activism have supported WWB’s mission of promoting cultural understanding through the publication and promotion of international literature. Read our press release here.
TECH & ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION
This event will be hosted on Zoom, which is available for download here. You’ll receive the link to the Zoom meeting the day of the event via email. Your display name should match the name you use to register for the event. You can change your Zoom display name by following these instructions.
In-app closed captioning and a full transcript will be available for this event. While in the meeting, you can toggle this on and off by clicking the “Live Transcription/CC” button at the bottom of your screen. You will not be able to turn on your own audio and video for this Zoom event.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Since joining IWP as director in 2000, Christopher Merrill has significantly expanded the program by increasing the number of countries that send writers to IWP, facilitating the translation of international writers, and personally leading workshops and reading tours abroad. As director of IWP, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. He served on the US National Commission for UNESCO from 2011 to 2018, and in April of 2012, President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities. Merrill also led the initiative that resulted in Iowa City being named a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008—at the time, the third UNESCO City of Literature anywhere and the first in North America.
An accomplished writer, Merrill has published eight collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets, and On the Road to Lviv. He is also the author of many edited volumes and translations and six books of nonfiction, among them Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars; Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain; and The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War. His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages, and his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations.
This is a free event. Your optional donation will help Words Without Borders keep its digital magazine, events, and education program free to readers around the world.