Probably not workable

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Seiun has a Best Foreign Novel category. Two questions:

1: if the Hugo Award had something analogous, what would it be?

2: If it existed, what would you have nominated for it?

Comments

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

1. Probably "Best Non-English Work", since I believe all English language works are eligible for the regular categories. At least, I don't think anything non-English has ever been short-listed.

2. I uphold the proud American tradition of monoligualism.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was looking at the WSFS constitution and there seemed to me to be an assumption that nominated works would be published in the USA.

[timill]

There's also an assumption that worthy works will be ignored by idiot monoglot American voters:

3.2.2: A work originally appearing in a language other than English shall also be eligible for the year in which it is first issued in English translation.
3.2.3: The Business Meeting may by a 3/4 vote provide that works originally published outside the United States of America and first published in the United States of America in the current year shall also be eligible for Hugo Awards given in the following year.

[disclaimer: I wrote Section 3.2.3]

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Something like this?

The SF&F Translation Awards?

Maybe a jury could select a slate of novels (or booklength works) and the registered members of the con could vote.

Catching these things in their eligible year would be the trickiest part, which is where a jury would come in handy. For instance, I had no idea that the new translation of ROADSIDE PICNIC by Strugatsky & Strugatsky (Bormashenko trans.) was published as recently as 2012. So I nominate that for the Non-Hugo for Translated SF/F that will not be given this year.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It was and I believe it is significantly different from the previous English edition.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

That's close but I don't want to exclude something because it happens to be written by an Anglophone.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Allow Anglophonic novels to be eligible after they have been translated into some other language.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hey, no kidding? I need to get hold of that.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

1) Probably Best Novel Not First Published in English, to encompass both the potential for a novel that was translated, and one that remained in native language. Though practically speaking, the first category would probably dominate.

2) Maybe something by Haikasoru.

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

Am I misremembering that they have a best translated short fiction category? Is it actually called foreign?

I think Best Translated would be an interesting idea, actually.