Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson on their BTBA Win

I asked the winners of this year’s Best Translated Book Award to send in some comments—or a video—about the prize, their project, etc. The first to arrive is the following from Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson about their translation of Lúcio Cardoso’s Chronicle of the Murdered House.

We are absolutely thrilled to have won the 2017 Best Translated Book Award, for the very obvious reason that it’s a great honour, but also because Chronicle of the Murdered House was our first co-translation, and proved to be such a happy collaboration that we are now working on a second project. Then there is the book itself, which is one of the most remarkable works either of us has ever read, and a fascinating challenge for us as translators: all those different voices—the hysterical, anguished prose of André, the Pharmacist’s rather pompous accounts, Nina’s wheedling letters to Valdo, Ana’s guilt-laden outpourings and so on. There can rarely have been a more searing and, at times, gut-wrenching description of death and decay or, indeed, of the lengths to which sexual desire can go. Our thanks to Chad and all at Open Letter for thinking we were up to the challenge! And thanks, too, to the judges for being as blown away by the novel as we were.