Translators recognised by Man Booker International Prize

A special translators award of £15,000 will be given as part of the Man Booker International Prize 2005, reports The Guardian.

The move has been inspired partly by the judges arriving at a final shortlist in which 10 of the 17 authors wrote in other languages. The winning author would have got £60,000, with nothing, until now, for the translator.

"The judges became increasingly aware of the huge role translators play," said their chairman, John Carey.

Among those in line for the inaugural prize are the translators of Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Stanislaw Lem, Naguib Mahfouz, Tomas Eloy Martínez and Kenzaburo Oe. The winning author decides which translator gets the prize, with discretion to split it among several translators.