Yilin Wang (Divya Kaur)

Yilin Wang has won the 2024 John Glassco Translation Prize.

The prize, now in its 40th year, is awarded by the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada (LTAC). It is granted annually to a literary translator whose first book-length translation into English or French stands out for its literary merits and precision.

Wang was named the winner of this year’s prize for The Lantern and the Night Moths (Invisible Publishing), translations of selected works of five Chinese poets. She will receive a $1,000 prize and, along with the other two finalists, a one-year membership to LTAC.

In their citation, the jury said “Wang’s renderings eloquently and faithfully convey tone, rhythm and register, yet the translator-poet also walks confidently alongside the original poems and authors, expanding into the possibilities of the target language to better allow the images and evocations in the source texts to draw their English breath.”

The jury for this year’s prize was comprised of literary translators of Jeannot Clair (chair), Katia Grubisic, Susan Ouriou, and Lida Nosrati.

Also shortlisted for this year’s prize were Denis Dumas for Les fantômes de Demmin (Actes Sud), a translation of Die Gespenster von Demmin by Verena Kessler, and Myriam Legault-Beauregard for De plâtre et de platine (L’Interligne), a translation of The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat.

The prize was awarded at an event in Montreal on Nov. 2.