The Northern California Book Reviewers Association is looking for eligible titles as it gathers submissions for the 2012 Northern California Book Awards (NCBA), to be handed out next spring.

There are many local literary awards across the U.S., but it’s unusual to have any that celebrate translation. Of the nine NCBA awards, two are for translators: best fiction and best poetry.

Last year’s NCBA winner in fiction was A Thousand Peaceful Cities by Jerzy Pilch, translated from Polish by David Frick. The poetry winner was Maribor, by Demosthenes Agrafiotis, translated from Greek by John Sakkis and Angelos Sakkis.

Although the translation award has been in operation since 2003, a quick scan of previous shortlisted titles turns up none translated from the Arabic.

Despite this, I know that some of you must live in the area bounded by “Fresno and north to the Oregon border.”

So! If you know a translator living in NoCal who has published a great book in translation this year, please include the translator’s name, their author’s name, the publisher, the original language, and the title of the book in an email to [email protected].

The deadline to submit eligible translations is January 13, 2012.

And if you’re a publisher (and not just a member of the hoi polloi), do send three copies of any eligible titles to Poetry Flash:

Poetry Flash/NCBR
1450 Fourth Street, #4
Berkeley, CA 94710

See: Arabic Literature