Words Without Borders Turns 10

Shelf Awareness

Last Tuesday, nearly 250 people gathered at Tribeca Three-Sixty in New York City to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Words Without Borders, the nonprofit, online monthly magazine devoted to literary translations that was founded in 2003 by book editors Alane Salierno Mason and Didi Felman.
Mason, a senior editor at W.W. Norton and still very involved as board president, spoke at the occasion, as did Iranian author Goli Taraghi, who has been published by Words Without Borders and now by Mason at Norton, with a translated collection of stories, The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons.
The emotional highlight and center to the evening was the initial presentation of the James H. Ottaway, Jr. Award for the Promotion of International Literature to distinguished and beloved book editor Drenka Willen (pictured, with award). 

Poet Charles Simic read an original poem for the occasion, and essayist/translator/editor Eliot Weinberger gave a loving, eloquent introduction for Willen, who was greeted by a prolonged standing ovation. Never comfortable with the limelight, she seemed moved in her remarks, but also relieved when no longer speaking. Her remarkable roster of authors, including Nobel Literature Prize winners Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, José Saramago and Wislawa Szymborska was cited, though to this observer, it's no more impressive than that she continues to edit and introduce writers who might otherwise be unread here, with forthcoming novels by Antonio Muñoz Molina (Into the Night of Time, translated by Edith Grossman) and Daša Drndić (Trieste, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać).

According to Words Without Borders executive director Karen Phillips, the evening raised more than $125,000, a record for the organization. Also part of the evening was the launch of WWB's Words Without Borders Campus education initiative. --Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.