Open Letter's "Golden Calf" a Finalist for the Rossica Translation Prize

The shortlist for the Rossica Translation Prize was announced today and features five works translated from Russian into English: The Cathedral Clergy: A Chronicle by Nikolay Leskov, translated by Margaret Winchell; Petersburg by Andrei Bely, translated by John Elsworth; The Road by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Mukovnikova; The Village by Ivan Bunin, translated by Galya and Hugh Aplin; and The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, translated by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson.

I’d like to take a moment to publicly congratulated Helen and Konstantin on this nomination. It was a wild set of coincidences that set this project in motion, and it’s been amazing working with the two of them on all facets of the publication of this book—the conception of the project, the translation itself, and the promotion of the book post-publication. And although I know all five books are great, I really really really want The Golden Calf to win. It would be great for the book—which is absolutely 120% brilliant—and for Open Letter, but especially cool for Helen and Konstantin, considering that this is their first book-length translation to be published. Based on the time and attention given over to this translation, they absolutely deserve to start out on top . . .

And not to draw attention away from their accomplishment in and of its own right (which is a prefatory statement to stealing attention away from their accomplishment in and of its own right), but it’s very gratifying that their translation beat out the other new translation of The Little Golden Calf. Some of you might remember the little controversy surrounding the near simultaneous publication of these two new translations.

I don’t want to get into the whole thing again—basically, the rights holder sold the rights to this book to two separate publishers, and the other one tried to diss ours for all sorts of totally absurd reasons—but since this is one of the few truly funny things I’ve ever written, and since this nomination feels so satisfying, I just had to at least reference it.

Anyway, read The Golden Calf. It may well be the funniest book I’ve ever published.