WLT Announces Best Literary Translations 2026 Nominees and 2025 Shortlisted Titles, by The Editors of WLT

Translators nominated for Best Literary Translations 2026 (top row, left to right): Vonani Bila, David Boyd, Whitney DeVos, Kit Maude; (bottom row) Valeria Meiller, Lola Rogers, Sharni Wilson, Linda Stern Zisquit

The editors of WLT are delighted to announce their shortlist of nominees, drawn from the pages of the magazine in 2024, for the anthology Best Literary Translations 2026:

“And the Earth Opened Its Mouth,” by Israeli writer Avigail Antman, translated from the Hebrew by Linda Stern Zisquit “the dance,” by South African writer Vonani Bila, translated from the Xitsonga by the author “Flash Flood,” by Guaraní writer Mario Castells, self-translated from Guaraní into Spanish and translated into English by Whitney DeVos and Valeria Meiller “Love All,” by Coreco Hibino, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd “Game Land,” by Juhani Karila, translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers “Death Valley,” by Junko Mase, translated from the Japanese by Sharni Wilson “Utterly Supernova’s Ride through Buenos Aires,” by Argentine writer Ana Ojeda, translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude

BLT 2026 will be guest-edited by Arthur Sze. The editors of literary translation journals, and translators who wish to self-nominate, are encouraged to look over the FAQs page and submit their work via Deep Vellum’s Submittable page prior to January 8.

Although not eligible for the BLT anthology, the editors would also like to make special mention of Kim Stafford’s “A Proclamation for Peace in Many Languages,” translated into Arabic, Danish, Persian, Italian, Punjabi, Tagalog, Yucatec Maya, and Yoruba; compiled by Allison deFreese; and translated by El Habib Louai, Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov, Alireza Taghdarre, Marella Feltrin-Morris, Moazzam Sheikh, Amna Ali, Su Layug, Abayomi Animashaun, and Lizbeth Carrillo Can.

World Literature Today is also thrilled to announce that three of its nominees from 2023 will appear in Best Literary Translations 2025:

“Elena Kame Is a Spell,” by the Maya K’iche’ poet Rosa Chávez, translated from Spanish by Gabriela Ramirez-Chavez “Obscenity,” by the Spanish writer Paloma Chen, translated by Lawrence Schimel “Apple-Flesh,” by the Hungarian writer András Visky, translated by Anna Bentley and Jozefina Komporaly

Guest-edited by Cristina Rivera Garza, BLT 2025 is forthcoming in April 2025.

Alice-Catherine Carls’s review of the debut volume, Best Literary Translations 2024—which featured Cynthia Steele’s translation of two Mapuche-Huilliche poems by Jaime Huenún Villa—can be found here.

And if you haven’t already perused the list, check out “World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2024,” plus Veronica Esposito’s latest columns on “Toki Pona” and “The Most Translated Authors.”