The John Florio Prize for Italian translation is awarded by the Society of Authors,[1] with the co-sponsorship of the Italian Cultural Institute and Arts Council England. Named after the Tudor Anglo-Italian writer-translator John Florio, the prize was established in 1963. As of 1980 it is awarded biannually for the best English translation of a full-length work of literary merit and general interest from Italian.[2]
Winners and shortlistees
edit1960–1979 annual run
edit| Year | Translator | Work | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | Donata Origo | The Deserter by Giuseppe Dessi | |
| Eric Mosbacher | Hekura by Fosco Maraini | ||
| 1964 | Angus Davidson | More Roman Tales by Alberto Moravia | |
| H. S. Vere-Hodge | The Odes of Dante | ||
| Professor E. R. Vincent | A Diary of One of Garibaldi's Thousand by Giuseppe Cesare Abba | [3][4] | |
| 1965 | W. H. Darwell | Dongo: The Last Act by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle & Urbano Lazzaro | |
| 1966 | Stuart Woolf | The Truce by Primo Levi | |
| Jane Grigson and Father Kenelm Foster | The Columns of Infamy of Crime and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria | ||
| 1967 | Isabel Quigly | The Transfers by Silvano Ceccherini | |
| 1968 | Muriel Grindrod | The Popes in the 20th Century by Carlo Falconi | |
| Raleigh Trevelyan | The Outlaws by Luigi Meneghello | ||
| 1969 | Sacha Rabinovitch | Francis Bacon: from Magic to Science by Paolo Rossi | |
| William Weaver | A Violent Life by Pier Pasolini | ||
| 1970 | Angus Davidson | On Neoclassicism by Mario Praz | |
| 1971 | William Weaver | The Heron by Giorgio Bassani | |
| William Weaver | Time and the Hunter by Italo Calvino | ||
| 1972 | Patrick Creagh | Selected Poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti | |
| 1973 | Bernard Wall | Wrestling with Christ by Luigi Santucci | |
| 1974 | Stephen M. Hellman | Letters from Inside the Italian Communist Party by Maria Antonietta Macciocchi | |
| 1975 | Cormac O’Cuilleanain | Cagliostro by Roberto Gervaso | |
| 1976 | Frances Frenaye | The Forests of Norbio by Giuseppe Dessi | |
| 1977 | Ruth Feldman & Brian Swann | Shema, Collected Poems of Primo Levi | |
| 1979 | Quintin Hoare | Selections from Political Writings 1921–26 by Antonio Gramsci |
1980–2004 biennial winners
edit| Year | Writer | Work | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Julian Mitchell | Henry IV by Pirandello | |
| 1982 | Christopher Holme | Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered by Paolo Matthiae | |
| 1984 | Bruce Penman | China (The moments of civilisation) by Gildo Fossati | |
| 1986 | Avril Bardoni | The Wine Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia | |
| 1988 | J. G. Nichols | The Colloquies by Guido Gozzano | |
| 1990 | Patrick Creagh | Danube by Claudio Magris | |
| Patrick Creagh | Blind Argus by Gesualdo Bufalino | ||
| 1992 | William Weaver | The Dust Roads of Monferrato by Rosetta Loy | |
| Tim Parks | Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy | ||
| 1994 | Tim Parks | The Road to San Giovanni by Italo Calvino | |
| 1996 | Emma Rose | His Mother's House by Marta Morazzoni | |
| 1998 | Joseph Farrell | Take-Off by Daniele del Giudice | |
| 2000 | Martin McLaughlin | Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino | |
| 2002 | Stephen Sartarelli | Prince of the Clouds by Gianni Riotta | |
| Alastair McEwen | Senior Service by Carlo Feltrinelli | ||
| 2004 | Howard Curtis | Coming Back by Edoardo Albinati |
2006–present biennial winners, runners-up, and shortlisted works
edit
= winner
| Year | Writer | Work | Result | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Carol O’Sullivan and Martin Thom |
Kuraj by Silvia Di Natale | Winner | |
| Aubrey Botsford | The Ballad of the Low Lifes by Enrico Remmert | Runner-up | ||
| 2008 | Peter Robinson |
The Greener Meadow by Luciano Erba | Winner | |
| Alastair McEwen | Turning Back the Clock by Umberto Eco | Runner-up | ||
| 2010 | Jamie McKendrick |
The Embrace: Selected Poems by Valerio Magrelli | Winner | |
| Abigail Asher | The Natural Order of Things by Andrea Canobbio | Runner-up | ||
| 2012 | Anne Milano Appel |
Scent of a Woman by Giovanni Arpino | Winner | |
| Howard Curtis | In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda | Commended | ||
| Shaun Whiteside | Stabat Mater by Tiziano Scarpa | Commended | ||
| 2014 | Patrick Creagh |
Memory of the Abyss by Marcello Fois | Winner | |
| Cristina Viti | A Life Apart by Mariapia Veladiano | Commended | ||
| 2016 | Jamie McKendrick |
Archipelago by Antonella Anedda | Winner | |
| Richard Dixon | Numero Zero by Umberto Eco | Commended | ||
| 2018 | Gini Alhadeff |
I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy | Winner | |
| Cristina Viti | Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari | Runner-up | ||
| Jamie McKendrick | Within the Walls by Giorgio Bassani | Shortlisted | ||
| Mario Petrucci | Xenia by Eugenio Montale | Shortlisted | ||
| Cristina Viti | The World Saved by Kids by Elsa Morante | Shortlisted | ||
| 2020 | Jhumpa Lahiri |
Trick by Domenico Starnone | Winner | |
| Jenny McPhee | The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte | Runner-up | ||
| Anne Milano Appel | A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig | Shortlisted | ||
| Ekin Oklap | Flowers Over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti | Shortlisted | ||
| Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnson | Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli by Giovanni Pascoli | Shortlisted | ||
| Howard Curtis | Soul of the Border by Matteo Righetto | Shortlisted | ||
| 2022 | Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda |
My Karst and My City by Scipio Slataper | Winner | |
| J Ockenden | Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini | Runner-up | ||
| Tim Parks | The House on The Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese | Runner-up | ||
| Elena Pala | The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi | Shortlisted | ||
| Stash Luczkwi | Without Ever Reaching the Summit by Paolo Cognetti | Shortlisted | ||
| Stephen Twilley | Diary of a Foreigner in Paris by Curzio Malaparte | Shortlisted |
2024 judges
editMaame Blue
editMaame Blue is a creative writing tutor and author of the novel Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask award. Her short stories have been published in three anthologies and her writing has appeared in Writers Mosaic, Refinery29 and The Author Magazine. Her second novel The Rest Of You will be published by Amistad (US) and Verve Books (UK) in Autumn 2024.
Jamie McKendrick
editJamie McKendrick was born in Liverpool in 1955. He is the author of six collections of poetry, including The Marble Fly, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and a Poetry Book Society Choice; Ink Stone, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Crocodiles & Obelisks, shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Out There won the Hawthornden Prize. An earlier selection of his poems was published as Sky Nails, and he is editor of 20th-Century Italian Poems. The Embrace, his translations of Valerio Magrelli’s poetry, won the Oxford-Weidenfeld and the John Florio prizes.
Sandra Silipo
editSandra Silipo has been studying and working with languages for over 30 years. She has a BA in Classics, an MA in Translation and an MA in Applied Linguistics. She has worked for the language industry in a variety of roles: as an associate lecturer and author for the Open University, as a free-lance translator, as a principal examiner for the IBO, as a language teacher and as a teachers’ trainer. Her profession has taught her that every word and every language tells a story. She loves to spend her time listening to those stories, and retelling them.
References
edit- ^ "Past winners - John Florio Prize (Italian)". The Society of Authors. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
- ^ "John Florio Prize (Italian)". The Society of Authors. Archived from the original on 17 August 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
- ^ London : Oxford University Press, 1962
- ^ Professor Eric Reginald Pearce Vincent; Bletchley Park