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Award Winners

June 2022

Nobel Prize Winner Abdulrazak Gurnah

Prize-winning authors—many of them in their first English translation—from the Words Without Borders archive.

From “Desertion”
By Abdulrazak Gurnah
He forced himself to take shallow breaths, even though his instinct was to swallow huge heaving gulps to relieve the sense of suffocation he felt in the crowds and the alleyways.
Özdamar’s Tongue
By Mariana Oliver
Özdamar knew that arriving in a country with no return ticket meant voluntarily surrendering to an indeterminate foreignness.
Translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches
The Vegetarian
By Han Kang
“Your body smells of meat.”
Translated from Korean by Deborah Smith
Learn
Tokyo Ueno Station
By Yu Miri
My reticence and my incompetence troubled me more than my appearance, but most intolerable was my unluckiness.
Translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles
The Wondrous Deer of the Eternal Hunt
By Svetlana Alexievich
He was a wildly lonely person. I loved him.
Translated from Russian by Marian Schwartz
Learn
A record plays on a turntable
Photo by Jace & Afsoon on Unsplash
Music Heard with You
By Adam Zagajewski
Grave Brahms and elegiac Schubert, / a few songs, Chopin’s third sonata
Translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh
On Packing
By Herta Müller
I carried everything I had. It wasn’t actually mine.
Translated from German by Donal McLaughlin
Prelude
By Tomas Tranströmer
Waking up is a jump, a skydive from the dream.
Translated from Swedish by Rika Lesser