New Delhi: The 2025 Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English translation has been jointly awarded to Shaiq Ali’s translation of ‘Kisan, Mazdoor, Sarmayadar aur Zamindar’ by Manto, and Arif Ansari’s translation of ‘No God Rises to Accept My Service’ by Sardar Jafri.The judges for this year’s award were Ather Farouqui and Aysha Munira Rasheed, who judged all the entries blind.The award is named after Urdu poet and scholar Ali Jawad Zaidi, who passed away in 2004. He wrote several books of poetry and prose including landmark texts such as A History of Urdu Literature, Uttar Pradesh ke Marsiyago, and Taarikh-e-Mushayara. He was honoured with the Padma Shri, the Ghalib Award, and the Mir Anis award, among others. In 2025, the prize was open to translations of Urdu non-fiction (essays, speeches or pen portraits between 1,000-5,000 words), relating to the theme of ‘Justice’.The judges said about the two winners:“The translation of ‘Kisan, Mazdur, Sarmayadar aur Zamindar’ is remarkably faithful to the source text and the text feels natural in English. The translator appears to possess an equal mastery of both languages. The nuances of Urdu have been successfully retained and idiomatic terms have been handled with a dexterity that retains their original flavour and nuance. There is a clear preference for preserving culturally resonant terms so that the text retains its texture. Impressively, the translation effectively conveys the rhythm and emphasis of the original, so that the English version never feels contrived or stilted.”and“‘No God Rises to Accept My Service’ stands out among other entries for its lucid and smooth prose and its fidelity to the source text. This entry rises to the challenge of translating the ornate Urdu prose of the original text by Sardar Jafri and producing a well-composed text in English. The translator’s diction is marked by appropriacy and intelligibility. Despite being an abridged translation of the source text and using multiple ellipses, the translation scores well on the criterion of translational fidelity, coherence and cohesion.”