The results are in, and the winner for the 2008 Kurodahan Press Translation Prize is Nancy H. Ross, a resident of Hiroshima prefecture. There were 31 entries, which were immediately pared down to 23 valid entries. Nancy was only scored highest by one judge, but her results overall impressed all three judges enough for her to win the total score.

The judges join me in saying that all such evaluations are largely subjective; one truly excellent phrase might win the extra points needed to emerge a champion, and one poorly thought-out sentence could drop that translator to the bottom of the list. Japanese literature needs more translators, and we all hope that you will continue to help make it available in English, or other languages.

Kurodahan Press hopes to publish her translation in volume 1 of our upcoming Kaiki anthology, scheduled for publication in late 2009.

The contest package is still online, and we have posted (anonymized) submissions by the other translators to serve as an aid for people interested in comparing them to see alternative ways of interpreting and expressing the source material. See the contest page for more information.

I would like to thank all the people who submitted entries to this contest, and especially the three judges who made time in spite of their busy schedules: Juliet Winters Carpenter, Meredith McKinney and Royall Tyler.