A translation of Seamus Heaney's poetry into Portuguese is among five works connected to Ireland which have been nominated for the prestigious European Aristeon 1998 literature and translation prizes.
The two prizes, to be announced in Stockholm as part of its Capital of Culture celebrations in September, are funded by the EU and are worth £16,000.
Writers and translators from the EU, Norway and Iceland are eligible.
Last year Hans-Christian Oeser from Germany won the translation prize for his version of Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy.
The Irish nominees this year are:
Literature - Anne Haverty's One Day as a Tiger (1998), and Breandan O Buachalla's Aisling Ghear (1996); Translation - Gabriel Rosenstock's rendering from German into Irish of Georg Heym's poetry Ophelia (1998), and Frank Sewell's English version of Cathal O Searcaigh's poetry Out in the Open (1997) (Na Buichailli Bana).
Rui Carvalho Homem is nominated for a translation of Seamus Heaney's selected poems from 1966 to 1987.
The range of nominations reflects an extraordinary span of cross-fertilisation. Iceland has nominated an English translator for his translation from Icelandic to English, while Greece and France have nominated the same translator and translation from Greek to French.
A Belgian writer, Hugo Claus, has been nominated both as a writer and for the Portuguese translation of his book.
The translated work includes that of such writers as Gunter Grass (into Spanish), Milan Kundera (into Italian), Federico Garcia Lorca (into Flemish), Antonia Byatt (into Danish), and Marcel Proust (into Icelandic).
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