Winners of Her Gyfieithu and Translation Challenge 2020 announced

[Darllen yn Gymraeg]

We are delighted to announce that the winners of our Her Gyfieithu and Translation Challenge this year are Eleoma Bodammer and Grug Muse.

Darllen beirniadaeth a chyfieithiad buddugol yr Her Gyfieithu ar wefan O’r Pedwar Gwynt

Read the Translation Challenge adjudication and winning translation on Poetry Wales website


Grug Muse is a poet, editor and researcher. She is one of the founding members and editors of Y Stamp literary magazine. Her first volume of poetry, Ar Ddisberod, was published with Barddas in 2017. She is a resident of Ulysses Shelter 2020, a Creative Europe project managed jointly in Wales by Literature Across Frontiers and Wales Literature Exchange, and is a recipient of Literature Wales Writers Bursaries 2020. Her work has been published in several publications including O’r Pedwar Gwynt, Barddas, Poetry Wales and others. She is currently working on a PhD research project at Swansea University. 

Dr Eleoma Bodammer is a Black Welsh academic. Born and raised in Wales, she learned German in her local comprehensive school in Newport, before studying German at the University of Manchester, where she was awarded a first-class BA Honours in German Studies and a PhD in German literature. She teaches German literature, grammar, written language, and translation, including literary translation into and out of German and English at postgraduate level at Edinburgh University. Her published research has focused on mid-18th and early 19th century German literature, and she has also published in the field of literary translation. She is currently working on representations of disability in the works of E. T. A Hoffmann.

Both winners will receive a prize of £ 200. The winning translations will be published on O’r Pedwar Gwynt and Poetry Wales websites, and a Bardic Staff, sponsored by Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru, will also be awarded to Grug for the best Welsh translation. 

This year, the challenge was to translate a series of short poems titled ‘Nahaufnahmen’ by Turkish poet, Zafer Şenocak, from German. Zafer Şenocak lives in Berlin, where he has become a leading voice in discussions on multiculturalism, national and cultural identity, and a mediator between Turkish and German culture.

Her Gyfieithu adjudicator, Mererid Hopwood, received 11 entries, and said that Grug’s entry was the translation that captured her imagination and was most successful in creating the feeling of a ‘poem’. 

Karen Leeder, author, translator and academic who teaches German at New College, Oxford, was the Translation Challenge adjudicator. She said that Eleoma’s translation “stood out at once, following the sinuous language to perfection and entirely in tune with that spare voice.”

A digital event will be held on 30 September, to coincide with International Translation Day, to celebrate Grug and Eleoma’s success. Click here to register.

The competition is organized by Wales Literature Exchange, Wales PEN Cymru and Literature Across Frontiers in collaboration with University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea University, Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru, O’r Pedwar Gwynt, Poetry Wales and the Goethe-Institut.


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