The 29^TH MGSA SYMPOSIUM

The Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize for 2026

Frank Hess, Chair, Elizabeth Constantinides Translation Prize Committee:

"As the chair of the Elizabeth Constantinides Translation Prize committee, it is my great pleasure to announce this year’s winner: Siân Valvis for her translation of Dimosthenis Papamarkos’s GJAK: Tales of Blood.  One of the most influential books of the 21st century in Greek letters, GJAK is a collection of stories and lyric poetry set in an Arvanite village in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War.  The collection poses extraordinary challenges to a translator: multiple genres of expression, historically grounded regional demotic Greek and Arvanitika, and scenes of trauma and violence.  The committee judged that Ms. Valvis handled these challenges with aplomb, producing a vivid translation that captures the psychological depth of the prose, the cultural particularity of the community, and both the beauty and rawness of Papamarkos’s language.  Our decision was unanimous.

The committee was composed of myself, Peter Constantine, Jennifer Kellogg, Giota Tachtara, and Vasiliki Misiou. I want to thank them all for the hard work they put in sorting through the 13 excellent submissions that we had for the prize this cycle.  It was a labor of love for all of us and a privilege to get a glimpse into the wealth of important work that is currently being done in the sphere of translation. The committee thanks all the entrants for sharing their work and wishes them every success with their translations. 

As winner of the prize, Ms. Valvis will receive $1,000.  I am pleased to be able to add that the translation will be available from Peirene Press on November 10, 2026, and is currently available for pre-order here and here " 

The MGSA Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize is intended to raise the profile of contemporary Greek literature in English and to award translation as a creative, intellectually meaningful exercise. Established in 1995 and administered by the MGSA, the Prize honors the memory of Elizabeth Constantinides (1932-1992, Ph.D. in Greek and Latin from Columbia University), who taught Modern Greek language and literature at Queens College of CUNY from 1978 to 1992, wrote on Alexandros Papadiamantis, and translated twelve short stories by Papadiamantis, published as Tales from a Greek Island (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Constantinides served on the Executive Committee of the MGSA and was awarded the 1987 prize of the Society of Literary Translators in Athens, Greece.