Translator Lali Unapkoshvili named recipient of French state order
Translator Lali Unapkoshvili received the French national prize from Ambassador Diégo Colas. Photo via Ambassador of France to Georgia on Facebook.
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Georgian translator Lali Unapkoshvili, distinguished with one of the country's principal awards for translation last year, has now been honoured for her work in bringing French literature to readers in her country with France's state Order of Academic Palms.
On Tuesday, France's Ambassador to Georgia Diégo Colas revealed on social media Unapkoshvili had been selected as the latest Officer of the award established to recognise academics and teachers for their contributions to education and science.
In his comments Colas praised Unapkoshvili as "translator extraordinaire" and pointed out her work for over two decades on the twinning project between the French city of Nantes and the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Great honor and pleasure for me to honor Ms Lali Unapkoshvili as Officer in the Order of Palmes Académiques, lifelong friend of ????????, key creator of the Nantes Tbilisi twinning, translator extraordinaire of Julien Gracq's works in Georgian. pic.twitter.com/ykPHkuctxL
— Diégo Colas (@ColasDiego) February 9, 2021
The Georgian translator's work on literature was honoured in her home country in December, when her work on author Julien Gracq's 1985 The Shape of a City was selected as one of three winners of the Litera for Translators Award.
Established in 2020 as a new category of the recognised Litera local prize for authors, the award was bestowed to Unapkoshvili for the Best Translation of Humanitarian-Scientific and Popular-Scientific Literature. The Shape of a City is Gracq's portrait of his childhood city of Nantes, and was published in Georgian by Agora Publishing.
With the Order of Academic Palms Unapkoshvili joins the likes of French painter Henri Rousseau, Ralph M. Hester, a recognised American Professor of French and initiator of the Interdisciplinary Institute of French Studies, and Iranian intellectual Ali Akbar Siassi.