NDS Lizi Behmoaras Translation Award Found its Owner

Translation by Janet MITRANI

A special evening where literature and loyalty met...

Last week, we were at the Palais de France (French Palace) for the 18th Notre-Dame de Sion Literary Awards. The ceremony, which took place under the auspices of the French Ambassador to Turkiye, Isabelle Dumont, with the participation of French Consul General Nadia Fanton, hosted a community consisting of Notre-Dame de Sion High School Principal Alexandre Abellan, Turkish Deputy Principal Tuna Saikalie, the school's administrators, teachers, graduates, together with literature lovers and jury members. During the ceremony, where Lizi Behmoaras's younger son, Eytan Behmoaras, represented his family, various speeches were delivered, and passages from the novel were read.

The Notre-Dame de Sion Literature Award is given alternately, one year to works written in French and translated into Turkish, and the next to works written in Turkish and translated into French. This year, the award was given to the French author Clara Dupont-Monod for her powerful novel ‘S'adapter (And the Stones Cry Out).’ However, for me, the significance of the evening lay in the next category: The Translator Award. The award committee, aiming to honor the work of the unsung heroes who bridge two cultures -the translators- but most importantly to immortalize Lizi Behmoaras's name, renamed this award as "The Lizi Behmoaras Translation Award." The first recipient of this meaningful award, presented also with the contributions of the Behmoaras family, became Bahadırhan Bozkurt, who translated ‘S'adapter (And the Stones Cry Out)' into Turkish, as titled 'Taşların Anlattığı' with immense meticulousness.

Following the awards presentation, both the author and the translator delivered their thank-you speeches. Eytan Behmoaras also expressed his gratitude to the jury for the award given on behalf of his mother.

A Journey of Life from Journalist to Author

Lizi Behmoaras was not only an intellectual from Notre Dame de Sion High School, but also a skillful translator who introduced French literature from Simone de Beauvoir to Paul Valéry to this country, an author who talked about minority memories, and a friend of ours who had contributed to Şalom Newspaper's culture pages.

The fact that an award bearing her name was given to a skillful translator who built a perfect bridge between the two languages is the most concrete proof of how alive her legacy is. As the sounds of applause echoed in the garden of the French Palace, Lizi's precious memory, she left with her elegance and works, remained.

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