The Goethe Institute NY announced this year’s shortlist comprising 3 translations of extraordinary merit:
Tess Lewis’s translation of Lutz Seiler’s Star 111
Paul Reitter’s translation of Karl Marx’s Capital
Nick Somers’s translation of Ines Geipel’s Behind the Wall.
Jury Chair Shelley Frisch on the jury's decision:
"This trio of shortlisted texts impressively displays the power of words, from three distinct perspectives, even though two of them—one a memoir, and the other a work of fiction, both appearing in English for the first time—focus on the German Democratic Republic; the third, a new translation of a nineteenth-century study of political economy, came to shake and shape the world. All three translations are marked by inspired word choices make their texts come alive in their new linguistic garb.