In Review

Brazilian novel Chronicle of the Murdered House, written by Lúcio Cardoso and translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, has earned the 2017 Best Translated Book Award for Fiction.

The book was published by Open Letter, the University’s translation press. The award is the first for Open Letter in the competition founded by Open Letter’s Three Percent online journal to highlight literary excellence from around the world.

In the poetry category, Alejandra Pizarnik’s collection Extracting the Stone of Madness, translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert and published by New Directions, won the top award.

And Open Letter’s novel Bardo or Not Bardo, by Antoine Volodine and translated from the French by J. T. Mahany ’13 (MA), received the inaugural Albertine Prize in May. A reader’s choice award presented by Van Cleef & Arpels and by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the prize recognizes American readers’ favorite work of contemporary French fiction. Mahany is a graduate of the University’s program in literary translation, an academic program that works closely with Open Letter.