2009 Batchelder Award to Cathy Hirano’s Translation of Moribito

What a lucky choice of speaker for the SWET New Year’s Party this coming weekend! The American Library Association just announced their major awards for children’s literature, and Arthur A. Levine Books of Scholastic Inc. was awarded the 2009 Batchelder Award for Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, written by Nahoko Uehashi and translated by Cathy Hirano—the featured speaker at the 2009 New Year’s Party on January 31.

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award, established in 1966, is “awarded to an American publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country, and subsequently translated into English and published in the United States.” See the ALA website for information about the Batchelder Award criteria and previous winners, as well as all of the other major awards.

An interview with Hirano by Misa Dikengil will appear in the next SWET newsletter, and an interview with Hirano by Avery Udagawa appears in the SCBWI Tokyo Fall 2006 newsletter . For an interview with Cheryl Klein, the Arthur A. Levine editor of Moribito, see the soon-to-be uploaded SCBWI Tokyo Fall 2008 newsletter .

This is actually the second time a fiction translation by Cathy Hirano has won the Batchelder Award; her translation of The Friends, written by Yumoto Kazuko won in 1997. Also worth noting, the 2008 Batchelder winner was a J-E translation—Brave Story written by Miyuki Miyabe and translated by Alexander O. Smith.

Hopefully these citations will pique interest from other publishers and result in publication of more and more English translations of Japanese children’s literature.

Posted by Holly Thompson on 01/27 at 11:32 PM

Comments

  1. After hearing Cathy Hirano speak at the SWET party, I borrowed a copy of “Moribito” and read it that night (!). It was terrific! I can’t wait to read the next one!

    I also read “The Friends” and found it an absolutely gorgeous, heartrending book. I want to give it to every kid I know.

    —Roo Heins

    Posted by Katherine Heins on 02/02 at 01:58 PM
    2. Page 1 of 1 pages

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