Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize


The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize is a prize that recognizes the best translation into English of book-length texts of Asian poetry or prose or Zen Buddhism. It was established by an anonymous donor in 2010, and is named for Lucien Stryk, the American Zen poet and translator.
The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize is awarded at the same time as the National Translation Award in Prose and Poetry, the Italian Prose in Translation Award, and the Cliff Becker Book in Translation Prize by the American Literary Translators Association. These awards are announced and honored at the annual ALTA conference held each fall. The winner receives $5000.

About the Prize

The prize is named after Lucien Stryk, an internationally acclaimed translator of Japanese and Chinese Zen poetry, Zen poet, and former professor of English at Northern Illinois University. Although primarily intended to recognize the translation of contemporary works, re-translations, or first-time translations of important older works, are also considered. Eligible works include book-length translations into English of Asian poetry or prose, or source texts from Zen Buddhism, book-length translations from Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, Kannada, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean into English. Submitted works must have been published in the previous calendar year.

Winners of the Prize