CLMP Firecracker Awards Announced [Spolier: We Won!]

Last Thursday, May 19th, CLMP held the (new) 2nd Annual Firecracker Awards. Presented by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) with the American Booksellers Association, the Firecracker Awards for independently and self-published literature are a revitalized iteration of the Firecracker Alternative Book Award originally established in 1996.

What we’re particularly pleased to announce is that Open Letter’s edition of The Things We Don’t Do by Andrés Neuman, translated from the Spanish be Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia, was announced the winner for the Fiction category!

The lineup of finalists for the Fiction category was amazing, and included such titles as American Meteor by Norman Lock (Bellvue Literary Press), The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hibig (Two Lines Press), and Home by Leila S. Chudori (Deep Vellum). From the CLMP website:

At an Awards Ceremony hosted by Poets House in New York City featuring Master of Ceremonies Dorothea Lasky (Rome), CLMP’s esteemed panel of judges were pleased to reveal the winners of the 2016 Firecracker Awards for Independent Literary Publishing in four categories:

FICTION — The Things We Don’t Do by Andrés Neuman, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia (Open Letter Books)

About this title, Brad Johnson, bookseller and manager for Diesel Bookstore (Oakland), writes: “At a time when so much of the world is talking about the policing of borders and the construction of walls, Andrés Neuman’s playful and philosophical stories in The Things We Don’t Do are refreshing. For Neuman, there is no simple divide between one self and another; love and hate; or even life and death. We find that what occurs ‘between’ two people is not so different from what occurs within one. The Things We Don’t Do is an achievement, and an extension of the Latin American tradition blazed by the likes of Cortázar and Bolaño.”

We are incredibly grateful to CLMP and the jury, and excited for Andrés, Nick, and Lorenza!

For more information on CLMP and the Firecracker Awards, as well as a full list of the finalists, and a full list of the winners, go here.