The Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators is a UK-wide creative translation competition for students aged 11-18 studying French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish. The competition also runs from French into Welsh. Last year, over 16,000 students from across the UK participated in the prize.
The 2024-25 prize will launch on 19 September, when our first set of creative translation teaching packs will be shared with registered teachers in time for European Day of Languages on 26 September and International Translation Day on 30 September. These teaching packs are designed to help teachers bring creative translation into the MFL classroom as well as to help students prepare for the competition task.
Teaching packs for poetry translation will be circulated to registered teachers on 19 September. Fiction resources will follow after October half term, and non-fiction will be released in early January 2025. To receive these resources, register for the prize.
The competition itself will run over several weeks from 3 February to 28 March 2025. Area and national winners will be announced in May or June 2025. All winners will receive certificates and national winners will receive book prizes. Visit the website to see the list of 2024 winners and commendations.
There are a number of related activities run by the Queen's Translation Exchange that teachers and pupils can participate in. See the Opportunities for Schools page.
If you have any queries regarding the competition, please contact the Translation Exchange team at translation.exchange@queens.ox.ac.uk.