Two Filipino Translators Among Inaugural Winners of a New International Literary Prize
Filipino translators Christian Jil R. Benitez and John Bengan are two of the seven inaugural winners of the prestigious PEN Presents x International Booker Prize. The new award, established by the Booker Prize Foundation and English PEN in late 2024, highlights two distinct Philippine works for translation: Bengan's translation of R. Joseph Dazo's Cebuano short story collection, Ubang Gabii sa Mango Avenue: Mga Sugilanon (trans. The Man With a Thousand Names), and Benitez's work on Alvin B. Yapan's Filipino novel, Ang Sandali ng Mga Mata (trans. Time of the Eye).
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Benitez and Bengan were chosen from a shortlist of 12 translation proposals that were evaluated by a cross-sectoral panel of seven experts. The shortlisted translators were awarded £500 grants to create 5,000-word samples of their proposed works, which were then assessed by an independent body drawn from English PEN's pool of literary translators. The winning six translators received editorial support from English PEN over the last month, with samples published on the English PEN website. World English Rights for all six manuscripts are now available for publishers and commissioning editors.
The Winning Filipino Translators
Benitez is pursuing his PhD in Comparative Literature at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. A scholar, poet, and translator, his critical and creative writings have been published in various journals and anthologies, including eTropic, Kritika Kultura, and Here was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Ecowriting. His English translation from Filipino of Jaya Jacob's Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics was published by San Fransciso-based PAWA and Paloma Press.
The work he translated, Ang Sandali ng Mga Mata (trans. Time of the Eye) by Alvin B. Yapan, was previously awarded the Philippine National Book Award for a novel in a Philippine language. It follows the story of the Nueva family in the town of Sagrada in the Bicol region, focusing on three characters from three different generations: the matriarch Selya, her daughter Nene, and Nene's son, Boboy.
Bengan is currently completing his PhD in Artistic, Literary and Cultural Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He has taught writing, literature, and translation at the Department of Humanities of the University of the Philippines Mindanao. His previous translations have appeared in Words Without Borders, LIT, ANMLY, World Literature Today, Shenandoah, and The Margins.
The work he translated, Ubang Gabii sa Mango Avenue: Mga Sugilanon by R. Joseph Dazo, is a collection of short fiction that tackles the complex lives of queer men, locally known as bayon in Cebuano-speaking communities. Presented in irreverent stories, the characters navigate sexual awakenings and struggle within an oppressive and conservative, mostly Catholic society. One of the short stories within the collection, "Binignit," won First Prize at the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2019. The book is also one of CNN Philippines' "Best Books of the 2010s."
The Man with a Thousand Names, Bengan's translation, is described by Safae El-Ouahabi, one of the panelists, as: "an intimate look at queer life in the Visayas and Mindanao, full of humour, warmth, and unflinching honesty. The writing blends local colour, personal memory, and queer experience in a voice that feels both immediate and deeply rooted in Cebuano culture. This is literature from an often-underserved linguistic region, and Bengan’s work makes a compelling case for more stories from the Visayas and Mindanao to be seen, read, and celebrated."
This is the first time that the translation grants program supported works originally published in Filipino and Cebuano, and translators from the Philippines.
