Jennifer Jenson won the "Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe" from the Goethe Institut New York for her translation of an excerpt from Elsa Koester's Couscous mit Zimt.
Find below a link to the announcement and an excerpt from the jury's recommendation:
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/bks/gut/jje.html
"Jenson's translation captures Koester's natural style and engaging voice, deftly bringing the German into English while maintaining the French flavors sprinkled throughout the original. Conveying the characters' intimate, spoken tone takes great sensitivity, and Jenson skillfully strikes the right balance, staying at an effective remove from the original—not so far as to verge on transgression, but far enough to have a persuasive, colloquial feel. The jury also appreciated Jenson's bold approach to the very first sentence, "It was my country, my land," which captures the physical and politically charged ambiguity of the German term Land. Jenson also arrived at some cleverly befitting solutions, such as rendering Dreckspatz as "mudlark."
The original prose is literary yet has a spoken quality, and faithfully transporting such tones from one language to another is one of translation's greatest challenges: Jenson rises to the task impressively. Much as the book combines sharp insights into several European cultures through distinctive characters' voices, Jennifer Jenson honors their interwoven stories with her strong translation."