Rochester’s literary translation press published Rodrigo Fresán’s invented biography of Herman Melville, translated by alumnus Will Vanderhyden.
Open Letter, the nonprofit, literary translation press at the University of Rochester, has earned the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize (United States and Canada) for the English translation of Melvill (October 2024) by Rodrigo Fresán. Awarded in North America annually since 2022, the prize celebrates the commitment of independent presses to fiction of exceptional literary merit.
“Readers will know from the array of footnotes on the first few pages that this book is for the head,” writes prize judge Dorian Stuber, an English professor at Hendrix College. “But the further they get into its gorgeous prose, so dizzyingly translated by Will Vanderhyden, the more they will see that it’s also for the heart.”
The prize represents not just a win for the press but also for the book’s translator, Vanderhyden ’13 (MA), an alumnus of the University’s master of arts in literary translation program.
“It’s a great honor,” says Chad Post, who heads up Open Letter. What pleases Post particularly is that the quirky idea of Spanish fiction’s taking on an American author resonated with the judges.
“Usually, it goes the opposite direction in which American authors are writing about the Spanish. A book about Cervantes from an American author would raise no eyebrows, but a Spanish author writing about Melville kind of does,” says Post. “The fact that this book is so wonderfully executed and translated—and then honored in this way—means a lot.”
Frequently the books he selects for publication, or their translators, have some form of personal connection. In this case, Post taught then-budding translator Vanderhyden in two of his graduate classes at Rochester. And while Post had met Fresán years earlier, it was only when Vanderhyden promoted the author in one of his classes that Post started paying closer attention.
Fast forward to today: Having translated six works by Fresán so far, Vanderhyden has become comfortable with the Argentinian author’s style. “But tracking down his incessant literary and pop culture references and recreating his ludic sensibility—his sense of humor, his tireless wordplay—in English are and will always be particularly challenging aspects of translating his work,” he admits.
Fresán’s Melvill is an invented biography—a gothic novel of sorts, populated by ghosts—about American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891), best known for his 1851 epic novel Moby-Dick. Open Letter bills Melvill(Melville’s mother added the “e” after her husband’s death to the family name) as “an evocation of a filial love,” containing “all the talent, humor, and immense culture found in the other great works from one of Spanish literature’s most ambitious writers.”
Besides being an important award that honors the trifecta of author, translator, and publisher, the Consciousness Prize also draws attention to the book itself because many of the judges are booksellers, says Post. “It’ll help sell the book in their stores.”
Meanwhile, Melvill is a finalist for the 2024 Barrios Book in Translation Prize, awarded annually by the National Book Critics Circle. That decision is due later this month.
The University’s translation press, while small, boasts a surprisingly large number of winning books and authors, among them Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse (2023) and National Book Award–winning translator Elisa Shua Dusapin (2021).
