Sarah Maguire Prize 2026: Prize-giving Ceremony
Every two years, the Poetry Translation Centre celebrates the breadth of international poetry and the often unseen work of translators by awarding the Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation. Join us this year for our online prize-giving ceremony hosted by writer and broadcaster Bidisha.
The 2026 shortlist features seven extraordinary books from poets writing in Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish and Turkish, spanning Chile, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Syria, South Korea and Türkiye. Each of these books speaks to our current historical moment, illuminating the urgent issues of our times: ecological breakdown, the legacies of colonialism and lives lived in exile.
Founded in honour of the Poetry Translation Centre’s founder, the Sarah Maguire Prize celebrates creative collaborations between poets and translators that give poems new lives in new languages. This is the fourth iteration of the prize, and the winning poet and translator will share a £3,000 prize fund.
The online ceremony, presented by Bidisha, will feature bilingual readings from all of the shortlisted books and an appreciation of the shortlisted poets and translators led by our judges, the writer André Naffis-Sahely, poet & translator Leo Boix, and poet & scholar Mona Kareem. The evening will culminate in the announcement of the winners of the 2026 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation.
You can read more about the shortlist on the PTC website.
By booking your place now, you will be supporting the work of the Poetry Translation Centre in recognising exceptional poetry from around the world and raising the visibility of the translators who help it travel.
Bidisha is a broadcaster, presenter and journalist. She specialises in the arts and culture as well as current affairs and human rights and provides cultural diplomacy, arts critique and political analysis tying these interests together on screen, mic, stage and page. She writes for UK broadsheet newspapers including The Observer and The Guardian, chairs events and presents and reports extensively across the BBC, CNN, Channel 5 and Sky News. Her fifth book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London, is based on her outreach work in UK prisons, charities and detention centres and her most recent publication is the essay The Future of Serious Art. She has served as Trustee for the Forward Prizes for Poetry, the PANDA Performing Arts Network and the Booker Prize Foundation as well as judging and talent scouting across film, TV, art, fashion, design, literature, media and performance projects.
