Frank Wynne


Frank Wynne is an Irish literary translator and writer.

Biography

Born in County Sligo in the west of Ireland, Frank Wynne worked as a comics editor at Fleetway and later at comic magazine Deadline. He worked for a time at AOL, before becoming a literary translator. He has translated many authors, including Michel Houellebecq, Boualem Sansal, Frédéric Beigbeder and the late Ivoirian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma.
He has twice jointly won the Dublin Literary Award: with Houellebecq for Atomised ; and with Alice Zeniter for The Art of Losing. His translation of Frédéric Beigbeder's Windows of [the World (novel)|Windows on the World], a novel set in the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York during the September 11, 2001 attacks, won the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Notably, he is a two-time winner of both the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for translation from the French and the Premio Valle Inclán for Spanish Translation.
Wynne's book I Was Vermeer, a biography of Han van Meegeren, was published by Bloomsbury in August 2006 and serialised as the BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week" in August 2006.
Wynne has edited two major anthologies for Head of Zeus: Found in Translation: 100 of the finest stories every translated, and the QUEER: LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday.
In 2021, it was announced that he would be the chair of the judging panel of the 2022 International Booker Prize – the first time a translator has chaired the panel.
Wynne has translated several books by Virginie Despentes, including King Kong Theory.

Selected translations

Date of translation is givenSomewhere in a Desert by Dominique Sigaud Atomised by Michel HouellebecqPlatform by Michel Houellebecq Lanzarote by Michel HouellebecqWaiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote by Ahmadou Kourouma

Awards