Scott Moncrieff Prize

Scott Moncrieff Prize
Awarded forThe best translation into English of a full-length French work of literary merit.
Sponsored byInstitut français du Royaume-Uni (current)
CountryUnited Kingdom (Translations must be first published in the UK)
Presented byTranslators Association (via the Society of Authors)
Websitehttps://societyofauthors.org/prizes/translation-prizes/french-scott-moncrieff-prize/

The Scott Moncrieff Prize, established in 1965, and named after the translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, is an annual £3,000 literary prize for French-to-English translation, awarded to one or more translators every year for a full-length work deemed by the Translators Association to have "literary merit". The runner-up receives £1,000. The prize is currently[when?] sponsored by the Institut Français du Royaume Uni. Only translations first published in the United Kingdom are considered for the accolade.

Sponsors of the prize have included the French Ministry of Culture, the French Embassy, and the Arts Council of England.

Winners

2020s

2023

  • Winner: Frank Wynne for a translation of Standing Heavy by GauZ' (MacLehose Press)

Shortlisted:

  • Adriana Hunter for a translation of The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House)
  • Teresa Lavender Fagan for a translation of Marina Tsvetaeva: To Die in Yelabuga by Vénus Khoury–Ghata (Seagull Books)
  • Clíona Ní Ríordáin for a translation of Yell, Sam, If You Still Can by Maylis Besserie (Lilliput Press)
  • Lucy Raitz for a translation of Swann in Love by Marcel Proust (Pushkin Press)
  • Shaun Whiteside for a translation of What You Need From The Night by Laurent Petitmangin (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
  • Frank Wynne for a translation of Standing Heavy by GauZ' (MacLehose Press)

2022

Per the Society of Authors:

Shortlisted:

2021

Per the Society of Authors:

Shortlisted:

2020 (presented 2021)

Shortlisted:

Geoffrey Strachan for a translation of The Archipelago of Another Life by Andreï Makine (MacLehose Press)

2010s

2019 (presented 2020)

Shortlisted:

2018 (presented 2019)

Shortlistees:

2017 (presented 2018)

2016 (presented 2017)

2015 (presented 2016)

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2000s

2009

  • Winner: Polly McLean for Gross Margin by Laurent Quintreau (Harvill Secker)
  • Runner up: Barbara Mellor for Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France by Agnes Humbert (Bloomsbury)

2008

2007

  • Winner: Sarah Adams for Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène (Chatto)
  • Runner up: Geoffrey Strachan for The Woman who Waited by Andrei Makine (Sceptre)

2006

2005

2004

  • Winner: Ian Monk for Monsieur Malaussene by Daniel Pennac (Harvill)

2003

  • Winner: Linda Asher for Ignorance by Milan Kundera (Faber and Faber)

2002

  • Winner: Ina Rilke for Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Chatto & Windus)

2001

  • Winner: Barbara Bray for On Identity by Amin Maalouf (Harvill)

2000

1990s

1999

1998

  • Winner: Geoffrey Strachan for Le Testament Francais by Andreï Makine (Sceptre)

1997

  • Winners: Janet Lloyd for The Spears of Twilight by Philippe Descola (Harper Collins)

and Christopher Hampton for Art by Yasmina Reza (Faber and Faber)

1996

1995

1994

No Award

1993

  • Winner: Christine Donougher for The Book of Nights by Sylvie Germain (Dedalus)

1992

  • Winners: Barbara Wright for The Midnight Love Feast by Michel Tournier (Collins)

and James Kirkup for Painted Shadows by Jean Baptiste-Niel (Quartet)

1991

  • Winner: Brian Pearce for Bread and Circuses by Paul Veyne (Penguin)

1990

  • Winner: Beryl and John Fletcher for The Georgics by Claude Simon (Calder)

1980s

1989

1988

1987

1986

and Richard Nice for Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu (Routledge)

1985

1984

  • Winner: Roy Harris for Course in General Linguistics by F. de Saussure (Duckworth)

1983

  • Winner: Sian Reynolds for The Wheels of Commerce by Fernand Braudel (Collins)

1982

1981

  • Winner: Paul Falla for The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome by C. Nicolet (Batsford)

1980

  • Winner: Brian Pearce for The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy 1598-1789 by Roland Mousnier (University of Chicago Press)

1970s

1979

  • Winner: John and Doreen Weightman for The Origin of Table Manners by Claude Levi-Strauss (Jonathan Cape)

and Richard Mayne for Memoirs (Collins)

1978

  • Winner: Janet Lloyd for The Gardens of Adonis by Marcel Detienne (Harvester Press)

and David Hapgood for The Totalitarian Temptation by Jean-Francois Revel (Secker & Warburg)

1977

  • Winner: Peter Wait for French Society 1789-1970 by George Dupeux (Methuen)

1976

  • Winner: Brian Pearce for Leninism under Lenin by Marcel Liebman (Jonathan Cape)

and Douglas Parmee for The Second World War by Henri Michel (Andre Deutsch)

1975

  • Winners: D. McN. Lockie for France in the Age of Louis XIII & Richelieu by Victor-L Tapie (Macmillan)

and Joanna Kilmartin for Scars on the Soul by Francoise Sagan (Andre Deutsch)

1974

  • Winner: John and Doreen Weightman for From Honey to Ashes by Claude Levi-Strauss (Collins) and Tristes Tropiques by Claude Levi-Strauss (Jonathan Cape)

1973

1972

1971

1970

  • Winner: W.G. Corp for The Spaniard by Bernard Clavel (Harrap)
  • Richard Barry for The Suez Expedition 1956 by Andre Beaufre (Faber)
  • Elaine P. Halperin for The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos (Gollancz)

1960s

1969

1968

  • Winner: Jean Stewart for French North Africa by Jacques Berque (Faber)

1967

  • Winner: John and Doreen Weightman for Jean Jacques Rousseau by Jean Guehenno (Routledge & Kegan Paul)

1966

1965

  • Winner: Edward Hyams for Joan of Arc (Regino Iornoud Macdonald)
  • Runner-up: Humphrey Hare for Memoirs of Zeus by Maurice Druon (Hart-Davis)

References

  1. ↑ "French - Scott Moncrieff Prize". The Society of Authors. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  2. ↑ triley (12 February 2024). "Frank Wynne Wins the 2023 Scott-Moncrieff Translation Prize". Institut Français · Royaume-Uni. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  3. ↑ "French – Scott Moncrieff Prize - The Society of Authors". 8 May 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  4. ↑ "French – Scott Moncrieff Prize - The Society of Authors". 8 May 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  5. ↑ "French – Scott Moncrieff Prize - The Society of Authors". 8 May 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
  6. ↑ "News | The Society of Authors". societyofauthors.org. Archived from the original on 18 November 2021. Retrieved 18 November 2021.
  7. ↑ "News | The Society of Authors". societyofauthors.org. Retrieved 11 February 2022.