Abolhassan Najafi Translation Award

First published: January 28, 2019 | Edit and update: February 2022

Renowned Iranian writer and translator Abolhassan Najafi was born in Najaf of Iraq to a religious Isfahani family on 28th June 1929 and passed away on 22nd January 2016. Contemporary Persian literature owes him a lot for his literary activities for almost seven decades beginning in the 1960s, including superb translations of several books from French into Persian, co-publication of the famous literary periodical Jong-e Isfahan, where he developed the literary school of Isfahan along with Houshang Golshiri and the younger Bahram Sadeqi, and his breakthrough monograph on editorial issues of contemporary Persian language and its common mistakes, entitled “Let’s Not Write It Wrong” [غلط ننویسیم].

Abolhassan Najafi

Najafi was a member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (1990–2016). He taught Persian at the universities of Tehran and Isfahan, and was an expert in linguistics and Persian meters.

A year after Najafi died of lung infection in Tehran, the Iranian Book City Institute founded the Abolhassan Najafi Translation Award in his memory. This annual award tends to evaluate and commemorate young and aspiring literary translators whose works follows the standards set by Najafi himself. The award’s referees are composed of the most eminent senior writers and translators such as Zia Movahed, Hassan Masoumi-Hamedani, Abdollah Kosari, Mahasti Bahraini, Mozhdeh Daghighi, Mousa Aswar, and Mahmoud Hosseinizad.


First Edition 2017 [1395]

Shortlist 

  1. Narges Entekhabi for translating Katherine Mansfield’s Garden Party (Mahi Pub)
  2. Khojasteh Keyhan for translating Paul Auster’s Report from the Interior (Ofoq Pub)
  3. Ehsan Norouzi for translating Jack Keruak’s On the Road (Cheshmeh Pub)
  4. Ali Masoumi for translating Tim O’Brien’s What They Carried (Qoqnoos Pub)
  5. Abtin Golkar for translating Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev’s Иваап Сергеевич… (Mahi Pub)

Winner

  • Abtin Golkar 

Second Edition 2018 [1396]

Shortlist

  1. Reza Rezaei for translating George Eliot’s Silas Marner (Ney Pub)
  2. Amir-Mahdi Haghighat for translating a short story by Miroslav Penkov, in the short story collection Buying Lenin [Mahi Pub]
  3. Asghar Nouri for translating “L’analphabete” and “C’est egal” by Agota Kristof [Morvarid Pub]
  4. Mohammad Hemmati for translating Le Marche de Radetzky by Joseph Roth
  5. Farzaneh Doosti for translating Wild Nights by Joyce Carol Oates [Ney Pub]
  6. Bahman Darolshafaei for translating George Orwell’s
    Down and out in Paris and London [Mahi Pub]

Winner

  • Mohammad Hemmati

Third Edition 2019 [1397]

Shortlist

  1. Ahmad Okhovat for translating William Faulkner’s short stories, titled Of Men and Horses[Ofoq]
  2. Mojgan Hosseini Rouzbehani for translating La nebuleuse de crab Qoqnoos]
  3. Abolfazl Allahdadi for translating
    L’extraordinaire voyage du fakir qui était resté coincé dans une armoire Ikea by Romain ‬Puértolas [Qoqnoos]
  4. Zeinab Younesi for translating
    Зулейха открывает глаза by Yakhina Guzel [Niloofar]
  5. Abtin Golkar for translating
    Kroliki & udavy by Fazil Iskandar [Ofoq]

Winner

  • Zeinab Younesi
  • Ahmad Okhovat (winner of the Third edition’s Special Award)

Fourth Edition 2021 [1398]

Shortlist

  1. Ali-Asghar Haddad for translating Joseph Winkler’s Wenn es soweit ist : Erzählung [Mahi Pub]
  2. Sepas Reyvandi for translating Primo Levi’s  Survival in Auschwitz : the Nazi assault on humanity [Mahi Pub]
  3. Farzaneh Taheri for translating Andrey Bely’s Petersburg [Markaz Pub]
  4. Nooshin Tayebi for translating Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See [Niloufar Pub]
  5. Mohammadreza Turk-Tatari for translating J. M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg [Mahi Pub]
  6. Mahmoud Goudarzi for translating Abbé Prevost’s Manon Lescaut [Ofoq Pub]
  7. Mohammadreza Parsayar for translating Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire [Farhang Moaser]
  8. Mohammad Nejabati for translating Vinght mille lieues sous les mers [Qoqnoos Pub]

Winners

  • Ali-Asghar Haddad
  • Mohammadreza Turk-Tatari

Fifth Edition 2022 [1400]

  1. Abolfazl Allahdadi for translating Oscar Coop-Phane’s Le procès du cochon [Nashr-e No]
  2. Babak Shahab for translating Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin’s Мы [“Us”, Bidgol Pub]
  3. Farzaneh Doosti for translating Kate Chopin’s Awakening [Bidgol Pub]
  4. Forough Puryavari for translating Ivan Klima’s My Crazy Century [Agah Pub]
  5. Mazdak Bolouri for translating Chester B. Himes’ A Rage in Harlem [Bidgol Pub]
  6. Yalda Bidokhtinejad for translating Liudmila Ulitskaia’s ВЕСЕЛЫЕ ПОХОРОНЫ [Borj Books]
  7. Ahmad Parhizi for translating Laurent Bineh’s HHhH [Mahi Pub]
  8. Mahshid Mirmoezzi for translating Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday [Saless Pub]

Winners

  • Farzaneh Doosti
  • Ahmad Parhizi

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