Karen Leeder wins Griffin Poetry Prize
Translator Karen Leeder, author Durs Grünbein and the publication
Image Credit: Griffin Poetry Prize
Oxford Professor and Einstein BUA/Oxford Visiting Fellow Karen Leeder won the the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize for the translation of Durs Grünbein's Psyche Running.
News from Jun 10, 2025
The international Griffin Poetry Prize was founded in 2000 to encourage and celebrate excellence in poetry. The prize is for first edition books of poetry written in, or translated into, English and submitted from anywhere in the world.
The international prize of C$130,000 is shared 60% to the translator, 40% to the original author; each of the other finalists receives C$10,000.
Judges Nick Laird, Anne Michaels, and Tomasz Różycki read 578 books of poetry, including 47 translations from 20 languages, submitted by 219 publishers from 17 different countries
Judges’ Citation: “Durs Grünbein’s Psyche Running is a brilliant overview and selection of a poet who satisfies our hunger to be serious, as again and again he finds himself “between words and things.” Karen Leeder’s adept translations establish a new version of Grünbein in English: universal, lyrical, philosophical”.