New award for fiction instituted

Institut français India has launched the very first Romain Rolland Book Prize, an award for the best translation of a French title in India. Translations into all Indian languages (including English) will be considered, for any literary fiction title published between January 1, 2015 and March 31, 2017.

The eminent jury will be composed of Namita Gokhale, author, founder and co-director of ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival; Annie Montaut, prof. Hindi at INALCO (Paris); Michèle Albaret-Maatsch, literary translator; Renuka George, literary translator; and Chinmoy Guha, professor university of Calcutta and literary translator.

For regional languages, consultants will join in to assess the quality of the translation.

The jury will be chaired by the Embassy of France in India. The awardee will be announced at Zee Jaipur Literature Festival 2018 / Jaipur BookMark 2018.

A curated trip to Paris Book Fair in March 2018 awaits the publisher and the translator of the winning translation.