The Prix Laure Bataillon is a French literary award established in 1986 by the cities of

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

and

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...

to be given for the best work of fiction translated each year. It is awarded jointly to a foreign writer and their French language translator.

History

Created in 1986 to recognise the "best work of fiction translated into French each year," the award was renamed for the Hispanic translator and literary critic, Laure Guille-Bataillon, translator of

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ent ...

and a 1988 laureate of the prize, following her death in 1990. The International Writers and Translators Residence at Saint Nazaire has been the administrator of the prize since 1993. In 2003, another prize, the Laure-Bataillon Classic Prize (Prix Laure Bataillon Classique) — given to the translator of a deceased author or a classic work of literature — was introduced and has been awarded alongside the original Laure-Bataillon Prize since 2004. In 2017, the Prix Classique was renamed the Prix Bernard Hoepffner.

Winners of the Prix Laure-Bataillon

The past winners of the Prix Laure-Bataillon include Nobel Prize laureates,

Derek Walcott Sir Derek Alton Walcott (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem ''Omeros'' (1990), which many critics view "as Walcot ...

Mo Yan Guan Moye (; born 17 February 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (, ), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazine ''TIME'' referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirate ...

, and

Olga Tokarczuk Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk (; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland; in 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize ...

Winners of the Prix Laure-Bataillon Classique

References

{{reflist, 30em Awards established in 1986 French fiction awards