The PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature awards a $5,000 grant to a translator for a work-in-progress of a book-length translation of an Italian work of literary fiction or nonfiction into English. The grant operates within the existing PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants which are offered annually to promote the publication of translated world literature in English.
This grant was awarded for the first time during the 2017 PEN Literary Awards cycle.
2025 Recipient
Beth Hickling-Moore’s translation from the Italian of Arcade by Alessandra Mureddu
Arcade (Azzardo) by Alessandra Mureddu is an unflinching work of autofiction exploring addiction, family trauma, and the societal obsession with instant gratification. The novel follows the narrator, also named Alessandra, as she attempts to “save” her father, a pathological gambler, only to find herself trapped emotionally and financially in the same perilous cycle. Soon she, too, is lost in the cold, mechanical world of slot machines. The protagonist’s relationship with her father, as well as her experiences with abusive men, paints a brutal portrait of how addiction interlaces with power dynamics and self-destruction, particularly within the context of a male-dominated gambling world. The novel brilliantly portrays a gamified society that commodifies even the most personal aspects of human life. Beth Hickling-Moore’s translation captures the raw urgency of Mureddu’s prose. Through careful attention to the nuances of addiction and the haunting repetition of routine, Hickling-Moore brings to life the narrator’s inner turmoil and the dehumanizing effects of the gambling world. The translation’s precision maintains the tension of the original text, while allowing the emotional weight to resonate in English with a palpable sense of dread and inevitability. The non-linear structure of the novel—alternating Alessandra’s path towards addiction with painful childhood memories—has been deftly mirrored in English, preserving the novel’s unsettling rhythm.
History
2024
Where You Did Not Take Me by Maria Grazia Calandrone, translated by Antonella Lettieri
From the judges’ citation: Maria Grazia Calandrone, known for her poetic work in the Italian literary landscape, writes a lyric of investigation and intimate dissection of her life – and that of her biological parents, which ended tragically. Dove non mi hai portata (Where You Did Not Take Me) is a haunting, visceral examination of the failures of Italian society towards young mothers, young families, welfare and mental health, one which Antonella Lettieri brings into English with the same depths of understanding and compassion that the author shows to her own mother; a translation which is precise, careful, and steeped in the warmth of empathy.
2023
Judges: Nicholas Glastonbury (Chair), Jenny Bhatt, Deborah Ghim, Kira Josefsson, Tom Kitson, Lina Mounzer, Kaitlin Rees, Alex Valente, Jordan Yamaji Smith, Jeffrey Zuckerman
Italian of Fathers by Giorgia Tribuiani, translated by Isabella Corletto
From the judges’ citation: “Italian literature is famous for its family sagas and familial conflicts, but what Giorgia Trabuiani wrote with Padri (Fathers) is a novel which upends those traditional themes and ideas. Looking exactly how he did on the day he died more than 40 years earlier, Diego Valli appears at his old apartment and is met with his son Oscar, who he left behind as a child and is now well into his 50s. The pathos that Isabella Corletto deftly infuses in her translation forms a lovely counterpoint to the seemingly absurd premise, resulting in a strikingly original text.”
2022
Judges: Tess Lewis (Chair), Kareem James Abu-Zeid, Nicholas Glastonbury, Thomas Kitson, Aditi Machado, Minna Zallman Proctor, Kaitlin Rees, Jordan A. Yamaji Smith
We Will Take Our Revenge by Paolo Nori translated by Tim Cummins
From the judges’ citation: “Tim Cummins’s muscular translation of Paolo Nori’s radical, unhinged, and terrifically readable novel, We Will Take Our Revenge, distinguishes itself in its total ownership of voice. Tracing the unusual story of civil justice and parenting, Cummins’s translation finds a perfect point on the bridge between the music of the Italian sentence and the urgency of English. It is both foreign and deeply resonant.”
Eligibility and Submission Guidelines
A recipient is selected from the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant applicant pool. Please see the eligibility and submission guidelines for the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants for information on how to apply. Any applicant who submits to the PEN/Heim Translation Fund grants whose project is a translation of narrative prose from the Italian into English is automatically considered for the PEN Grant for the Translation of Italian Literature.
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