German – Schlegel-Tieck Prize

The Schlegel-Tieck Prize is an annual award for translations into English of full length German works of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and a runner-up is awarded £1,000.

First awarded in 1965 and named for two poets of the Romantic period, August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) and Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853).

The Schlegel-Tieck Prize is now open for submissions. Please enter below.
Deadline for entries: 31 March 2025.


An annual prize or translations into English of full length German works of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and the runner-up is awarded £1,000.

The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for the translation of German into English was first awarded in 1965 and is named for two poets of the Romantic period, August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) and Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853).

Entry Deadline: Monday 31st March 2025 

Entry criteria

  • The original must have been first published in the last 100 years
  • The translation must have been first published in the UK between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
  • Submissions must not contain the use of AI generated works
  • Maximum two entries per imprint.

Conditions of entry

The decision of the judges is final and they reserve the right not to award the prize if, in their opinion, no works entered reach a sufficiently high standard. Judges may call in books if they so wish.

Current employees (or anyone directly connected with the administration of the Society of Authors’ grants and prizes) or members of the SoA Management Committee may not apply for any of the grants and prizes administered by the Society of Authors.

It is a condition of entry that publishers will put the award logo or “2025 Schlegel-Tieck Prize Winner” or “Shortlisted for the Schlegel-Tieck Prize 2025”, on the cover of subsequent editions of winning/shortlisted books. We have designed roundels with this information on them if you’d like to use those.

How to Enter

Submissions must be made by the publisher.

Please upload a digital copy of the text in both languages to this application or send the files to prizes@societyofauthors.org.

Once this form is completed please send five physical copies of the translation and four physical copies of the German text (all non-returnable) to:

Schlegel-Tieck Prize
Prizes department
Society of Authors
24 Bedford row
London
WC1R 4EH

Couriers should be advised to use the Theobalds road entrance.

The prize will be celebrated at the annual Translation Prizes ceremony in 2026. For any queries, please email prizes@societyofauthors.org

Submissions must be made by the print publisher
The translation must have been first published in the UK between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025
The original must have been first published in the last 100 years.
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
Maximum two entries per imprint
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
Please provide a short bio. This may typically include recent publications, the name, date, and details of previous prizes won, education, training, and career background, and pronouns.
I agree to abide by the conditions of entry. I confirm that the translator and translation meet the criteria for entry as detailed above.
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The 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize winner


Andrew Shanks for a translation of Revelation Freshly Erupting: Collected Poetry by Nelly Sachs (Carcanet Press)

Photography © Natalie Thorpe

‘Andrew Shanks’ innovative translation of Nelly Sach’s Revelation Freshly Erupting: Collected Poetry is a masterpiece because he notably succeeds to convey the grief and longings of the original poems with unparalleled poignancy and pathos. His translation marvellously engages and captures the horror of the holocaust and its aftermath in subconscious rhythmic patterns and spell-binding transference of ideas which renders a smooth sense and intention of the original while preserving the poetic features, essence and meaning.’

Anju Okhandiar, 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize judge


The 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize runner-up


Imogen Taylor for a translation of Glorious People by Sasha Salzmann (Pushkin Press)

Photography © Natalie Thorpe

Glorious People, luminously translated by Imogen Taylor, provides an intriguing insight into the fall-out from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its effects as they filter through into the younger generation living in Germany. The novel is psychologically acute, the narrative often surprising, the characters caustic and winning.’

Shaun Whiteside, 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize judge


The 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize shortlist


Michael Hofmann for a translation of Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir by Werner Herzog (The Bodley Head, Vintage – Penguin Random House UK)

Michael Hofmann for a translation of Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (Granta Publications)

Gillian Davidson for a translation of Library for the War-Wounded by Monika Helfer (Bloomsbury Publishing)

‘The genius of these books ranging from poetry to prose reveal the authors uncompromising imagination, linguistic variations maintaining subtlety and flawlessness of style and register.’


Anju Okhandiar, 2024 Schlegel-Tieck Prize judge

If you are interested in any of the books here please visit Bookshop.org.


2023 (presented 202=)

  • Winner: Jamie Bulloch for a translation of Hinterland by Arno Geiger (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
  • Runner-up: Lucy Jones for a translation of Siblings by Brigitte Reimann (Penguin Modern Classics)
  • Shortlisted:
    Katy Derbyshire for a translation of While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
    Katharina Hall for a translation of Punishment by Ferdinand von Schirach (Baskerville, an imprint of John Murray)
    Tess Lewis for a translation of Epic Annette: A Heroine’s Tale by Anne Weber (The Indigo Press)
    Rachel Ward for a translation of Tasting Sunlight by Ewald Arenz (Orenda Books)

2022 (presented 2023)

  • Winner: Damion Searls for a translation of Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić (Jonathan Cape, Penguin Random House UK)
  • Runner-up: Steph Morris for a translation of It All Tastes of Farewell: Diaries, 1964-1970, by Brigitte Reimann (Seagull Books)
  • Shortlisted:
    Roslyn Theobald for a translation of just sitting around here GRUESOMELY now, by Friederike Mayröcker (Seagull Books)
    Gitta Honegger for a translation of Rein Gold by Elfriede Jelinek (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
    Sharmila Cohen for a translation of The High-Rise Diver by Julia von Lucadou (World Editions)
    Simon Pare for a translation of Troubled Water: A Journey Around the Black Sea,by Jens Mühling (Haus Publishing)

2021 (presented 2022)

  • Winner : Karen Leeder for a translation of Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City by Durs Grünbein. ( Seagull Books)
  • Runner up: Simon Pare for a translation of Cox; or, The Course of Time by Christoph Ransmayr. (Seagull Books)
  • Shortlisted: Jamie Bulloch for a translation of The Day My Grandfather Was a Hero​ by Paulus Hochgatterer. (MacLehose Press)
    • Jamie Bulloch for a translation of The Hungry and The Fat by Timur Vermes. (MacLehose Press)
    • Sophie Duvernoy for a translation of Käsebier Takes Berlin by Gabriele Tergit. (Kirsten Chapman)

2020 (presented 2021)

  • Winner: Martyn Crucefix for his translation of These Numbered Days by Peter Huchel (Shearsman Books)
  • Runner-up: Jamie Bulloch for his translation of You Would Have Missed Me by Birgit Vanderbeke (Peirene Press)
  • Shortlisted: Joel Agee for a translation of Agathe: Or, the Forgotten Sister by Robert Musil (New York Review Books)
    • Imogen Taylor for a translation of Beside Myself by Sasha Marianna Salzmann (Text Publishing) 
    • Karen Leeder for a translation of The Sex of the Angels, the Saints in their Heaven by Raoul Schrott (Seagull Book)
    • Sinead Crowe and Rachel McNicholl for a translation of The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan (World Editions)

2019 (presented 2020)

  • Winner: Iain Galbraith for a translation of River by Esther Kinsky (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
  • Runner-up: Karen Leeder for a translation of Thick of It by Ulrike Almut Sandig (Seagull Books)
  • Shortlisted: Margot Bettauer Dembo for a translation of The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers (Virago Press)
    • Katy Derbyshire for a translation of Gentleman Jack by Angela Steidele (Serpent’s Tail)
    • Simon Pare for a translation of The Flying Mountain by Christoph Ransmayr (Seagull Books)
    • Damion Searls for a translation of Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson (New York Review Books)

2018 (presented 2019)

  • Winner: Tony Crawford for a translation of Wonder Beyond Belief by Navid Kermani (Polity Press)
  • Runner-up: Tess Lewis for a translation of Kruso by Lutz Seiler (Scribe)
  • Shortlistees: Susan Bernofsky for a translation of Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (Granta)
    • Jen Calleja for a translation of Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel (Peirene Press)
    • Stefan Tobler for a translation of The Old King in His Exile by Arno Geiger (And Other Stories)

2017 (presented 2018)

  • Winner: Allan Blunden for a translation of Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada (Scribe)
  • Commended: Katy Derbyshire for a translation of Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

2016 (presented 2017)

  • Winner: Iain Galbraith for a translation of Self-Portrait With A Swarm of Bees by Jan Wagner (Arc Publications)
  • Commended: Anthea Bell for a translation of All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski (Granta)

2015 (presented 2016)

  • Winner: Susan Bernofsky for a translation ofThe End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck (Portobello)
  • Commended: Shaun Whiteside for a translation ofThe Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky (Bloomsbury)

2014

  • Winner: Jamie Bulloch for a translation of The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (Peirene Press)
  • Commended: Anthea Bell for a translation of In Times of Fading Light by Eugen Ruge (Faber)

2013

  • Winner: Ian Crockatt for a translation of Pure Contradiction – selected poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (Arc)
  • Commended: Jamie Bulloch for a translation of Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe (Peirene)

2012

  • Winner: Vincent Kling for a translation of Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta by Aglaja Veteranyi (Dalkey Archive Press)
  • Commended: Ross Benjamin for a translation of Funeral for a Dog (pictured far right) by Thomas Pletzinger (Norton)

2011

  • Winner: Damion Searls for a translation of Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson (Hesperus)
  • Runner-up: Michael Hofmann for a translation of Angina Days – Selected Poems by Günter Eich (Princeton University Press)

2010

  • Winner: Breon Mitchell for a translation of The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Harvill Secker)
  • Runner-up: Allan Blunden for a translation of The Return of the State? By Erhard Eppler (Forum Press)

2009

  • Winner: Anthea Bell for a translation of Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig (Pushkin Press)
  • Runner up: Michael Hofmann for a translation of The Seventh Well by Fred Wander (Granta)

2008

  • Winner: Ian Fairley for a translation of Snow Part by Paul Celan (Carcanet)
  • Runner up: Anthea Bell for a translation of Amok and Other Stories (Pushkin Press)

2007

  • Winner: Sally-Anne Spencer for a translation of The Swarm by Frank Schätzing (Hodder)
  • Runner up: Anthea Bell for a translation of Vienna by Eva Menasse (Weidenfeld)

2006

  • Winner: Philip Boehm for a translation of A Woman in Berlin Anonymous (Virago)
  • Runner up: Caroline Mustill for a translation of A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich (Yale University Press)

2005

  • Winner: Karen Leeder for a translation of Selected Poems by Evelyn Schlag (Carcanet)
  • Runner up: Michael Hofmann for a translation of The Stalin Organ by Gert Ledig (Granta Books)

2004

  • Winner: Martin Chalmers for a translation of The Lesser Evil – The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1945-59 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

2003

  • Winner: Anthea Bell for a translation of Rain by Karen Duve (Bloomsbury)
  • Runner up: Michael Hofmann for a translation of Luck by Gert Hofmann (Harvill)

2002

  • Winner: Anthea Bell for a translation of Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald (Hamish Hamilton)
  • Runner up: John Felstiner for a translation of The Poems and Prose of Paul Celan (Norton)

2001

  • Winner: Krishna Winston for a translation of Too Far Afield by Gunter Grass (Faber and Faber)
  • Runner up: Anthea Bell for a translation of Vienna Passion by Lilian Faschinger (Headline)

2000

  • Winner: Joyce Crick for a translation of The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud (OUP)
  • Runner up: Patrick Bridgwater for a translation of Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (Menard Press)

1999

  • Winner: John Brownjohn for a translation of Heroes Like Us by Thomas Brussig (Harvill)

1998

  • Winner: Mike Mitchell for a translation of Letters Back to Ancient China by Herbert Rosendorfer (Dedalus)
  • Runner up: J.A. Underwood for a translation of The Castle by Franz Kafka (Penguin)

1997

  • Winner: Shaun Whiteside for a translation of Magdalena the Sinner by Lilian Faschinger (Headline Review)

1996

  • Winner: David McLintock for a translation of Extinction by Thomas Bernhardt (Quartet),
  • and David McLintock for a translation of Caesar by Christian Meier (HarperCollins)

1995

  • Winner: Ronald Speirs for a translation of Political Writings of Max Weber (CUP)and 
  • William Yuill for a translation of a translation of The Making of Europe: The Enlightenment by Ulrich im Hof (Blackwell)

1994

  • Winner: Krishna Winston for a translation of Goebbels by Ralf Georg Reuth (Constable)

1993

  • Three joint winners: John Brownjohn for a translation of The Swedish Cavaliers by Leo Perutz (Harvill), 
  • John Brownjohn for a translation of Infanta by Bodo Kirchhoff (Harvill)
  • and Michael Hofmann for a translation of Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen (Hamish Hamilton)

1992

  • Winner: Geoffrey Skelton for a translation of The Training Ground by Siegfried Lenz (Methuen)

1991

  • Winner: John Woods for a translation of The Last World by Christoph Ransmayr (Chatto & Windus)
  • and Hugh Young for a translation of The Story of the Last Thought by Edgar Hilsenrath (Penguin)

1990

  • Winner: David McLintock for a translation of Women in a River Landscape by Heinrich Boll (Secker & Warburg)

1989

  • Winner: Quintin Hoare for a translation of The Town Park & Other Stories by Herman Grab (Verso),
  • and Peter Tegel for a translation of The Snake Tree by Uwe Timm (Picador)

1988

  • Winner: Ralph Manheim for a translation of The Rat by Gunter Grass (Secker & Warburg)
  • and Michael Hofmann for a translation of The Double-Bass by Patrick Suskind (Hamish Hamilton)

1987

  • Winner: Anthea Bell for a translation of The Stone and the Flute by Hans Bemmann (Viking)

1986

  • Winner: Christopher Middleton for a translation of The Spectacle at the Tower by Gert Hofmann (Carcanet)
  • and Allan Blunden for a translation of Pro and Contra Wagner by Thomas Mann (Faber and Faber)

1985

  • Winner: John Bowden for a translation of The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World by Henning Graf Reventlow (SCM Press)

1984

  • Winner: Patricia Crampton for a translation of Marbot by Wolfgang Hildesheimer (Dent)

1983

  • Winner: Paul Falla & A.J. Ryder for a translation of A History of European Integration 1945/47 by Walter Lipgens (Clarendon Press) 
  • and Arnold Pomerans for a translation of A Small Yes and a Big No by George Grosz (Allison & Busby)

1982

  • Winner: Eric Mosbacher for a translation of The Wolf by Eric Zimen (Souvenir)

1981

  • Winner: Michael Hamburger for a translation of Poems by Paul Celan (Carcanet),
  • and Edward Quinn for a translation of Does God Exist? by Hans Kung (Collins)

1980

  • Winner: Janet Seligman for a translation of The English House by Herman Matheusieus (Granada)
  • and David & Hazel Harvey for a translation of Sophocles by Karl Reinhart (Blackwell)

1979

  • Winner: Ralph Manheim for a translation of The Flounder by Gunter Grass (Secker & Warburg)
  • and John Brownjohn for a translation of People and Politics by Willy Brandt (Collins)

1978

  • Winner: Michael Hamburger for a translation of German Poetry 1910-1975 (Carcanet)

1977

  • Winner: Charles Kessler for a translation of Wallenstein – His Life Narrated by Golo Mann (Andre Deutsch)
  • and Ralph Manheim for a translation of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht (Eyre Methuen)

1976

  • Winner: Marian Jackson for a translation of War of Illusions by Fritz Fischer (Chatto & Windus)

1975

  • Winner: John Bowden for a translation of Judaism and Hellensim by Martin Hengel (SCM Press)

1974

  • Winner: Geoffrey Skelton for a translation of Frieda Lawrence by Robert Lucas (Secker & Warburg)

1973

  • Winner: Geoffrey Strachan for a translation of Love and Hate by Irendus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (Methuen)

1972

  • Winner : Richard Barry for a translation of The Brutal Takeover by Kurt von Schuschnigg (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

1971

  • Winner: Ewald Osers for a translation of The Scorched Earth by Paul Carell (Harrap)

1970

  • Winner: Eric Mosbacher for a translation of Society without the Father by Alexander Mischerlich (Tavistock)

1969

  • Winner: Lelia Vennewitz for a translation of The End of a Mission by Heinrich Boll (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

1968

  • Winner: Henry Collins for a translation of History of the International by J. Braunthal (Nelson)

1967

  • Winner: James Strachey for a translation of Works of Sigmund Freud (Hogarth)

1966

  • Winner: Ralph Manheim for a translation of Dog Years by Gunter Grass (Secker & Warburg)

1965

  • Winner: Michael Bullock for a translation of The Thirtieth Year by Ingeborg Bachmann (Andre Deutsch)
  • and Report on Bruno by Joseph Breitbach (Cape)

Gabriel Gbadamosi

© John Folley

Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish and Nigerian poet, playwright and critic. His London novel Vauxhall (Telegram, 2013) won the Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize and Best International Novel at the Sharjah Book Fair. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths in European and African performance; a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University; and Writer in Residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Plays include Stop and Search (Arcola Theatre), Hotel Orpheu (Schaubühne, Berlin), and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of ’76 (BBC Radio 3) which won the Richard Imison Award. He presented BBC Radio 3’s arts and ideas programme Night Waves and is the founding editor of WritersMosaic. Read more about Gabriel here.

Anju Okhandiar

Anju Okhandiar is an author and a translator. I specialize in writing articles, creative nonfiction, short stories, travelogues, and memoirs. I’m a Chartered linguist, a career affiliate in German language, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL). I have been working as a professional translator for over thirty years. I translate from English and German into Hindi. I’m also an elected committee member of the Translation Association of the Society of Authors. I volunteer as a mentor for the University of Nottingham and offer career mentoring advice to student mentees aspiring on joining the publishing industry.

Shaun Whiteside

© Camila Pastorelli

Shaun Whiteside is a translator of fiction and non-fiction from German, French, Italian and Dutch. His most recent translations from German include historical studies by Harald Jähner (the first of which, Aftermath, was short-listed for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize) and a trilogy of collective philosophical biographies by Wolfram Eilenberger, the last volume of which is forthcoming. A former chair of the Translators Association and CEATL, the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations, he lives in London.