“Security Questions” wins Poetry in Translation Prize
Osdany Morales’s Security Questions, translated from the Spanish by Harry Bauld, is the inaugural winner of the Poetry in Translation Prize, co-awarded by Giramondo.
Shortlisted under the translated title of “The Past is a Lonesome Town”, the book was originally published in Spanish in 2015 as El Pasado es un Pueblo Solitario (Almenara Press).
The author and translator first met while working at the same school. “Bauld’s curiosity was piqued by the new hire, a Spanish-speaking novelist and poet, and he found his poems online,” according to organisers. Of the poems, Bauld said, “they spoke to me, I did a translation of one, and by way of introduction and welcome sent it to him. He paid me the compliment of saying how strange it was to ‘hear my own voice in English’.”
Bauld said, “The poems from Security Questions are, on the one hand, a lyric sequence shaped by coming of age in small-town Cuba during the late stages of Fidel Castro’s regime, and on the other a testament of exile and immigration, traces that remain in the wake of forsaking a problematic homeland for the uncertainties of the present.”
Morales said, “Before arriving in the US, I had written only fiction. If it weren’t for this book, it would have taken me much longer to reach the lands of memory. [ … ] At the time, I believed that fiction wasn’t confessional, that only poets had access to that kind of meaning. It was through writing poetry that I realised I carried many memories in literary form – that exile had established a past I could already recount without waiting for old age. Exile and poetry made me look not exactly backward, but inward.”
Judges selected the title from a shortlist of 8, among a total of 259 submissions.
The Poetry in Translation Prize is a “biennial award for an outstanding poetry collection translated into English”, said the organisers. The winners will receive an advance of US$5000 (A$7500) shared equally between the writer and the translator.
The winners are offered simultaneous publication by Giramondo in Australia and New Zealand, New Directions in North America and Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK and Ireland. Publication is scheduled for early 2027.
Category: Awards Local news
