New translation award presented at ceremony

ISTANBUL

Siren İdemen (C) received the Talat Sait Halman Translation Award from IKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı (L) and head of the committee Doğan Hızlan.

The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) has introduced a translation award in honor of Talât Sait Halman, who died last year, to support outstanding translations of literary works, including but not limited to poetry, short stories and novels. 

The award ceremony for the first Talât Sait Halman Translation Award was held Dec. 8 in Istanbul and the award of 15,000 Turkish Liras was presented to Siren İdemen for her translation of Georges Perec’s “La Boutique Obscure: 124 Rêves.”

“Halman served as Turkey’s first minister of culture and later as ambassador for cultural affairs and was the president of the İKSV Board of Trustees since 2008. On the first anniversary of his passing away, we remember him with great respect. 

As the İKSV, we want to keep his memory alive by supporting new and outstanding examples of literary translation, which is the area that he dedicated his life,” said İKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı.

Selective committee headed by Doğan Hızlan

Applications from publishing houses and translators for the award were evaluated by a selection committee headed by Doğan Hızlan and composed of author, translator, and critic Sevin Okyay, authors and translators Ahmet Cemal and Yiğit Bener, as well as author Kaya Genç. Approximately 50 works that were completed within 2015, including poems, short stories and novels, applied for the award, which was announced in October 2015.

“İdemen not only reflected the author’s original style and dialect with her full command of Turkish but also came up with creative equivalents for the frequent words, sounds and wicked rhymes predominant in the original,” Hızlan said. 

“While doing that, she did not omit cultural substrata and superstrata of the original but brought the original to the reader, by either giving footnotes or imbedding in the translation.”

Born in 1961 in Istanbul, İdemen studied French in Galatasaray High School. In addition to co-founding magazines such as Express, Roll and Bir+Bir, she has served as a news reporter, author and editor. 

The application deadline for the Talât Sait Halman Translation Award 2016 is September 2016. Publishing houses and translators may apply with their literary translations from any language to Turkish and published within 2016.