Prague, April 18 (CTK) – Edgar de Bruin, Dutch Czech studies scholar, translator and literary agent, will receive the Jiri Theiner Award, bestowed on those who significantly help spread and promote Czech literature in the world at the Book World fair and festival, its spokeswoman Jana Chalupova told CTK on Tuesday.
Book World will be held in Prague in May.
De Bruin has translated about 50 Czech book titles, short stories, dramas and poetry and mediated the publication of hundreds of Czech books abroad.
Theiner was a long-time editor-in-chief of the Index on Censorship magazine. The prize carries 30,000 crowns. It will be awarded for the seventh time this year.
The first winner was Andrzej Jagodzinski of Poland, Czech studies scholar, translator and journalist.
In the following years, the award went to Ruth Bondy of Israel, Czech studies scholar, translator and writer, to Canadian translator and writer Paul Wilson, U.S. translator and writer Peter Demetz and Belarussian Czech studies scholar Siarhei Smatrychenka.
Last year, the award was bestowed on Czech-born literary historian and translator Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz.
In 2008, the Czech Writers’ Guild presented de Bruin with the Premia Bohemica award.
In 2003, de Bruin and his Czech-born wife Magda de Bruin Hublova founded the Pluh (Plough) literary agency, which represents the world translation copyrights of 12 Czech writers. Since its establishment, the agency has mediated the foreign issues of several hundreds of Czech titles the world over.
