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Alexa Frank Wins Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation 2024

Alexa Frank has been announced as the 2024 winner of The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation into English at the Lakes.

Alexa Frank has been announced as the 2024 winner of The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation into English at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, in partnership with Comica and VIP Brands. Alexa Frank won for her translation of 沖合の雷 by Saito Nazuna, a collection of stories translated from Japanese, as Offshore Lightning published by Drawn & Quarterly.

The award was presented at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Bowness-on-Windermere by two of the three judges, Associate Professor in the Nottingham School of Art & Design, writer and artist Carol Adlam, and comic archivist, author, publisher and longstanding comics advocate Paul Gravett.The third judge was Gemma Sosnowsky, of Lancaster University

"Nazuna Saito began making comics late. She was in her forties when she submitted a story to a major Japanese publishing house and won an award for newcomers. She continued to work through the 1990s until she stopped drawing to take care of her ailing parents. In her sixties, she took a job teaching drawing at Kyoto Seika University and became inspired by her talented students. When she returned to teaching, her storytelling interests had shifted. Before suffering a stroke she drew "In Captivity" (2012) and "Solitary Death Building" (2015)―both focused on aging and death. Offshore Lightning collects Saito's early work as well as these two recent graphic novellas. Stories like "Buy Dog Food and Go Home" and "Offshore Lightning" focus on middle-aged men caught in a cycle of self pity and self reflection. Saito gently pokes fun at their anguish and self-involvement while capturing the pathos of these men as they revisit childhood friendships and lost loves. By contrast, "In Captivity" follows three siblings visiting their ailing mother who is succumbing to dementia and resentful at her loss of agency. The siblings take a drive as they reckon with balancing the painful legacy of her caustic personality with attempting to honor this woman at the end of her life. "Solitary Death Building" documents an eccentric cast of elderly gossips as death descends upon the housing complex where they all live."

Alexa Frank is a translator, writer, and editor who lives in New York. In 2019, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship, through which she researched and wrote at Waseda University in Tokyo. She is the translator of a wide range of Japanese manga, ranging from "alternative" or "literary" manga to cozy romance, fantasy, and cat manga. In addition to her translation of Offshore Lighting, her recent work includes River's Edge by Kyoko Okazaki (Vertical Comics, 2023), and A Story of Seven Lives by Shirakawa Gin (Seven Seas, 2023). In a comment read to the audience on her behalf, Frank thanked author Saito Nazuna, the team at Drawn & Quarterly her "many Japanese teachers" and others.

The runner up was Juliette: Les fantômes reviennent au printemps by Camille Jourdy, translated from French as Juliette: Or, the Ghosts Return in the Spring by Aleshia Jensen, published by Drawn & Quarterly.

Also highly commended were Dans la Tête de Sherlock Holmes by Cyril Lieron and Benoit Dahan, translated from French as Inside the Mind of Sherlock Holmes by Christopher Pope, published by Titan Comics and La falaise by Manon Debaye, translated from French as The Cliff by Montana Kane, published by Drawn & Quarterly.

Launched last year, the Sophie Castille Award – English is an award for the best translation of a non-English graphic novel into English, a project initiated by VIP Brands Ltd., in partnership with Comica and the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Michele Hutchison was announced as the winner of the inaugural Award, for her translation from Dutch of The Philosopher, The Dog and the Wedding by Barbara Stok, published in English by SelfMadeHero.

These awards have been created in honour of Sophie Castille, international rights director and V. P. of licensing for Mediatoon, cofounder and director of Europe Comics, who died unexpectedly in 2022. Since the late 1990s, Sophie built bridges for bandes dessinées and their authors, from France and around the world. She was a constant source of creativity, motivating publishers across the globe and encouraging them to exchange ideas. As a result, she became a key figure in the growth of the translation of comics and graphic novels around the world.

The goal is to have these awards honouring the art of comics translation in as many countries in the world as possible. Since the Award was launched in the UK last year, five other countries have joined: FICOMIC – Barcelona, Spain, where Regina López Muñoz received the award for Lizzy Stewart's Alison (Errata Naturae), Comicon, Naples – where Samata K. Milton Knowles received the award for Liv Stromquist's Astrologia (Fandango). Łódź International Festival of Comics and Games Poland will announce their first winner the 14th September 2024, while Slovenia's Tinta Festival Stripa will have two awards, one for a children's comic and one for an adult comic, and will announce their first winners at this year's festival (9th – 13th October). ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΑΚΑΔΗΜΙΑ ΚΟΜΙΚΣ (Greek Comics Academy) will announce their first award in May 2025.

"The Sophie Castille Awards are global awards to recognise the work of translators in the medium," explains Ivanka Hahnenberger, General Manager of VIP Brands and founder of the Sophie Castille Awards, "as well as to highlight the importance of the work of translation in the world of comics, recognising the skill and dedication of those who contribute significantly to the dissemination and understanding of comics around the world which was very important to Sophie Castille. We are very proud to have 6 countries onboard through six organisations that are very important to the world of local and international comics."

"We were delighted to again be hosting the awards ceremony for the Sophie Castille Award – English prize," says Festival Director Julie Tait. "Alongside the launch of the International Rights Market at the Festival, a project also supported by VIP Brands, this was another good reason for comic creators and publishers to come to Bowness."

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