'Letters to Anyone and Everyone' Wins Marsh Award 2011

This article was published on Friday 21 January 2011

The book, translated from the original Dutch version by Toon Tellegen, and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg was the stand out translation in a strong year for children's books translated into English. The prize was awarded at a ceremony at Dartmouth House.

Martin Cleaver said "I am honoured to receive the Marsh Award and delighted at this recognition. It has always been my dream that English-speaking children and adults should be able to enjoy literature and films from other cultures and language areas. Subtitling and literature in translation has a major role to play in this."

Publisher, David Bennett, expressed delight at the award and said "it is made all the more significant being a small, independent publisher, and being able to choose extraordinary texts - Toon's work is a vault of gems."

The current list of submissions to the award included books translated from Danish, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. The judging panel was pleased by the high quality of submissions and after animated discussion, selected four excellent stories for the shortlist, all beautifully told.

The other three books shortlisted were:

• The Pasta Detectives by Andreas Steinhöfel translated from German by Chantal Wright (The Chicken House, 2010)
• No and Me by Delphine de Vigan translated from French by George Miller (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010)
• David's Story by Stig Dalager translated from Danish by Frances Østerfelt & Cheryl Robson (Aurora Metro Publications, 2010)

To contact Martin Cleaver email David Bennett at Boxer Books.

The award is administered by The English-Speaking Union and sponsored by The Marsh Christian Trust