The winner of this year’s Risa Domb Porjes Prize, a triennial award for the best English translations of full-length Hebrew books, was today announced as British-Israeli translator Jessica Cohen.
The award recognised Cohen’s shortlisted English translations of Maya Arad’s novel The Hebrew Teacher and Shifra Horn’s novel Scorpion Dance. She had five entries on the longlist which included essays about contemporary Israel by David Grossman, What Makes an Apple? by Amos Oz and three very different works of fiction.
David Herman, chairman of the 2026 Risa Domb Porjes Prize, led a panel of judges with scholars Professor Miri Rubin and Dr. Leya Landau and said they unanimously decided on Cohen’s winning translations.
“We debated several key questions. First, does the translation stand on its own as a work of literature in English? Second, how well does it render the distinctiveness of the original text’s narrative voice? Third, is the translation engaging and accessible to an English-language reader? Finally, how well does the translator convey the meaning and spirit of the Hebrew text?” Herman said. “Jessica is a fine translator and a worthy winner of the 2026 Risa Domb Porjes Prize.”
Cohen, who was born in Britain, moved with her family to Israel as a child. She studied English Literature at the Hebrew University before moving to the US in 1997, and has since translated contemporary Israeli authors including Etgar Keret, David Grossman, Amos Oz, Nir Baram and Maya Arad. Her translation of David Grossman's 2014 novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar was awarded the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Also shortlisted for the prize were Stuart Schoffman for his translation of AB Yehoshua’s novel, The Only Daughter (2022) and Daniella Zamir for her translation of Hila Blum’s novel, How to Love Your Daughter (2023).
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