Ina Rilke wins Flemish Cultural Award for translations

The triennial Flemish cultural Award for translations has been conferred upon Ina Rilke. The other nominees were Franco Paris and Alain van Crugten. She received the prize for Shutterspeed, her translation of the novel Sluitertijd by Erwin Mortier, published by Harvill Secker. Last year, the novel was included in the long-list for the ‘The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize’.

The jury of the Cultural Awards praised Rilke’s translations because they form ‘new’ texts in themselves. She manages to place herself in the author’s shoes as well as in Flemish culture while simultaneously neutralizing, apparently effortlessly, the cultural differences with discrete interventions. With her translations, she succeeds in enabling Dutch-language authors to gain a foothold in the Anglo-Saxon book market.

Published: February 10, 2009 news