Janina Dragostinova (Bulgaria) Translation
Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project
Translation project (German > Bulgarian) Blutbuch by German-speaking Swiss writer Kim de l’Horizon
Janina Dragostinova, born in 1962 in Varna on the Black Sea coast, studied German studies and film studies in Sofia. Since 1991, she has worked as a cultural journalist for various newspapers and magazines. In 2001, she began translating German literature and has translated over 50 books into Bulgarian to date. Among the authors she has translated are Daniel Kehlmann, Stefan Zweig, Juli Zeh, Eugen Ruge, Jonas Lüscher, Robert Seethaler, Arno Geiger, and others.
Todorka Mineva (Bulgaria) translation
Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project
Translation project (French > Bulgarian) Exil et musique essay by French-speaking Swiss writer Étienne Barilier
Todorka Mineva is a literary translator and editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian publisher SONM. A graduate in philosophy and French language and literature from Sofia University Saint Kliment Ohridski, she has translated from French into Bulgarian humanities works by Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Jean Starobinski, Jean-François Lyotard, Henri Bergson, Antonin Artaud, etc., as well as literary works by Emile Verhaeren, Georges Rodenbach, André Baillon, Marguerite Duras, Jacques Chessex, Georges Haldas, etc.
Jamie Lee Searle (UK) Translation
Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project
Translation project (German > English) Blutbuch by German-speaking Swiss writer Kim de l’Horizon
Jamie Lee Searle is a literary translator from German and Portuguese into English. Her publications include Urs Faes’ Twelve Nights, Anna Kim’s The Great Homecoming and Joachim B. Schmidt’s Kalmann. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and a co-founder of the Emerging Translators Network. Jamie previously worked with the Stephen Spender Trust, coordinating their prize for poetry in translation. She has held translation and writing residencies at Art Omi, New York, and the Austrian Literature Society, Vienna.
Yvette Siegert (USA) translation
Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project
Translation project (French > English) Cent petites histoires d’amour and Cent petites histoires cruelles by French-speaking Swiss writer S. Corinna Bille
Yvette Siegert was born in the United States and lives in the United Kingdom. She studied at Columbia University and the Université de Genève, and is completing a doctorate at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Atmospheric Ghost Lights (Poetry Society of America, 2023). Her translations include works by Chantal Maillard, Fernando Vallejo, Juan Villoro, Ana Gorría, Jacinta Escudos, and Alejandra Pizarnik, for which she won the Best Translated Book Award.
Petro Tarashchuk (Ukraine) Translation
Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project
Translation project (French > Ukrainian) Permis C by French-speaking Swiss writer Joseph Incardona
Petro Tarashchuk was born in 1956 in Vinnitsa, into a family of doctors. After studying medicine in Kyiv and then at the Kyiv Institute of Physical Culture, he did his military service in the Soviet Army. Afterwards he studied at the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute and at the Shevchenko University in Kyiv, in the faculty of literature (Ukrainian philology). He worked as a guide for the Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv (1989-1990) and as an editor for the publishing house Dnipro (1990-1993). Since 1993 he has devoted himself entirely to the profession of translator. In 1998 he was elected a member of the Ukrainian Writers' Association. He was awarded the Skovoroda Prize (2010) and the M. Rylskyj Prize (2012) for his translations.
