Annie Montaut, winner of the Inalco/Vo-Vf 2022 Translation Prize

The fourth Inalco-Vo/Vf Translation Prize has been awarded to Annie Montaut, professor emeritus at Inalco and literary translator, for her translation of the Hindi novel Ret samadhi. Beyond the Border by Indian writer Geetanjali Shree, awarded the International Booker Prize 2022.

This prize was presented to her on October 2, 2022 at the Vo/Vf festival by prize initiators Marie Vrinat-Nikolov and Nathalie Carré (Inalco), in the presence of Mathias Enard, writer and Inalco alumnus.

Author of numerous publications in the fields of Indian linguistics and literature, Annie Montaut has led an intense translation activity since 1987, and the French public owes it to her to be able to read in her translations novels, short stories and poems translated from Hindi.

The members of the jury praised Annie Montaut's tireless work as a major bridge-builder between cultures and, in particular, the efforts and talent developed in the French version of Ret Samadhi, a work with "dense, destabilizing, inspired and poetic", which represents a real translation challenge and requires us to explore the full potential of a French language freed from syntactic and lexical norms too often (self-)imposed, following the example of Geetanjali Shree who plays with Hindi syntax and creates neologisms.

Annie Montaut has taken up this challenge brilliantly, doing justice to the Hindi author's experimental style. Cross-reading the original and its French version highlighted the translator's attention to the play on sonorities (alliteration and assonance, onomatopoeia) and the highly dynamic rhythm of the narrative. While bringing a major work of contemporary Hindi literature to the attention of French-speaking readers, Annie Montaut respects all its richness, which she has transposed excellently into French.

Daisy Rockwell, translator of Tomb of Sand, the English version of Ret Samadhi which won the Booker Prize in 2022, also thanked Annie Montaut for helping her with the French translation and underlined the quality of her work.

The Inalco Translation Prize - Festival VO/VF, le monde en livres

Earmarked with a prize of 1,000 euros, this award is designed to highlight the quality of a translator's work, as well as the richness of literature that is sometimes still little known to the general public, as it is often less widely distributed. The competition is open to prose texts (short stories or novels) published in the three years preceding the award ceremony (2016-2018 for the 2019 edition). Works translated by Inalco members or students are not eligible.

Through this initiative, Inalco wishes to highlight its expertise in translation, as well as the recognition of the work of the translator and his or her publisher in the dialogue between the world's literatures. Inalco is particularly grateful to Mr. Jacques Lalloz, an Inalco graduate (Japanese, 1970), who helped finance the prize.