Mr Geoff Wilkes, Senior Lecturer with School of Languages and Cultures, has been shortlisted for the 2018 Medal of Excellence in Translation by the Australian Academy of the Humanities. The Medal for Excellence in Translation is a major national award that recognises outstanding achievement in translation and the vital role of translators in Australian culture and scholarly discourse.
Geoff was nominated for his translation of The Greater Hope by Ilse Aichinger (Königshausen and Neuman, 2016). The Greater Hope is a translation of Ilse's 1948 novel recounting her experience of anti-Semitism as a young woman in Nazi Austria. The novel captures the horror and the humanity of that experience, but transcends it to offer a profound meditation on a greater hope, the metaphysical perspectives of which surpass the physical trajectories of devastation, deportation and death. It is translated into English from the original German.
