CSEAS-affiliated graduate student and PhD Candidate in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies Dan Owen was recently awarded the National Translation Award in Poetry for his translation of Afrizal Malna's Document Shredding Museum (World Poetry Books, 2024).
The National Translation Award (NTA) is awarded annually in poetry and in prose to literary translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality. Established in 1998, the NTA is the only prize for a work of literary translation into English to include an evaluation of the source language text.
The NTA judges' citation for Dan's translation emphasizes, "Afrizal Malna’s poetry is unlike any other. In Indonesia, an adjective has been crafted from his first name—Afrizalian—to describe his stunning mix of apparently disjointed images in deceptively simple phrases that combine realism and absurdism, philosophy and playfulness. Full of surprises, Malna’s poems offer urgent existential meditations superbly translated into a kinetic, vibrant English by Daniel Owen."