‘PEN Translates' Award to Story Book ‘Seher’ Written by Selahattin Demirtaş

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

English PEN has awarded the "PEN Translates" award to the story book "Seher", which was written by Selahattin Demirtaş, imprisoned former Co-Chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Being awarded the "PEN Translates" award along with the English translations of 15 other books from 15 countries and 12 languages, "Seher" consists of the stories which were written by Demirtaş, who has been behind bars since November 4, 2016, while he was in prison.

Regarding the award, Ros Schwartz, Co-Chair of the Writers in Translation committee made the following statement:

"The list of award-winning titles is more diverse than ever, with translations from 15 countries and 12 languages, including Bosnian, Indonesian, Slovenian and Tamil, with the first ever novel from the Comoros Islands to be translated into English. English PEN is thrilled and proud to be supporting such an exciting range of outstanding titles."

Books are selected for PEN Translates awards on the basis of outstanding literary quality, strength of the publishing project, and contribution to literary diversity in the UK. The award-winning books are featured on the English PEN World Bookshelf  website, in partnership with Foyles.

Click here to see the full list of awardees

PEN Germany declared him honorary member

PEN Germany Center previously released a statement and announced that it has declared Selahattin Demirtaş as its honorary member.

In the statement, the center made a call to the authorities in Turkey and requested that "its honorary member Selahattin Demirtaş be immediately and unconditionally released."

"Seher" translated into 8 languages

The story book "Seher" (Dawn), which was published in Turkey on September 16, 2017 in Turkish, has been translated into eight languages.

As reported by Duvar news website, the storybook has been translated by Gerhard Meier into German; by Hanneke van der Heijden into Dutch; by Nicola Verderame into Italian; by Amy Marie Spangler and Kate Ferguson into English; by Rêdûr Dîjle (Kurmanji) and by Ferhat Çomani (Sorani) into Kurdish; by Reem Dawood into Arabic; by Stella Vretou into Greek; and by Julien Lapeyre de Cabanes into French.

The book has also been translated into Chinese and Japanese; however, they have not been published yet.

Covers of French and Italian editions

Covers of German and Dutch editions

The English edition of the book has been published by Hogarth Publishing, a part of Random House Penguin, among whose founders was also Virginia Woolf; the German edition by Penguin Verlag; the French edition by Editions Emmanuelle Collas; the İtalian edition by Feltrinelli; the Greek edition by Patakis and the Dutch edition by AW Bruna - Signatuur.

Jessica Parker photographed while holding the book

US actress Sarah Jessica Parker was photographed in New York last week while she was holding the English edition of the book.

It is expected that "Seher" will be published by SJP for Hogarth Publishing, which is owned by Parker, in the US in April 2019. (EKN/SD)