King's College London

The Centre for Hellenic Studies calls for submissions for the annual Niki Marangou Translation Prize, first established in 2016 in memory of the Cypriot poet, novelist, and painter Niki Marangou, who died in 2013. From 2019 onwards, the prize has been awarded for a literary translation from Modern Greek into English of extracts from the work of Niki Marangou.

Entry requirements

Participants translate (in English) a specific poem that the committee has selected from the published works of Niki Marangou, with a chance of winning £500. Participants must also add a cover letter stating their name, address, contact information, and programme of study. Entries must be submitted electronically, as a single pdf scan (translation in English + 1p. cover letter), by the deadline of 16:00 (GMT) on 15 January 2026, by emailing them to Professor Gonda Van Steen, gonda.van_steen@kcl.ac.uk and Dr Liana Giannakopoulou, ag585@cam.ac.uk The competition is open to all BA, MA or PhD students currently enrolled in any British university. All entries will be judged by a panel of three members of the teaching staff in Modern Greek Studies. Winning entries may be published on the Niki Marangou website.

The winner will be announced in the spring of 2026, at the eighth Niki Marangou Annual Memorial Lecture, co-organised with King’s Centre for Hellenic Studies. This eighth Niki Marangou Lecture will be given by the renowned Manolis Savvidis in Athens (date TBC). He will be speaking on the contemporary definition/perception of poetry in Modern Greek (Ο ορισμός της ποίησης—in Greek).

 

Niki Marangou (1948-2013) was born in Limassol, Cyprus, but part of her family from Famagusta. She was an acclaimed writer and painter. She studied sociology in West Berlin from 1965 to 1970. After graduating, she worked as a dramaturge at the State Theatre of Cyprus. Marangou published books of prose, poetry, and children’s fairy tales, and she held seven exhibitions of her work in painting. She won numerous prizes, including the 1998 C.P. Cavafy Prize for Poetry and the 2006 Athens Academy Poetry Award for her collection Divan. She was a member of the Hellenic Authors Society and the Cyprus Writers Association. From 1980 to 2007, she was the director of the Kochlias Bookshop in Nicosia. Marangou died in a car accident in Egypt in 2013.

For more information on awards, activities and events, visit the Centre for Hellenic Studies