Announcing the Winner of the 2018 Albertine Prize
Readers may recall a story posted back in December about the Albertine Prize, an annual award co-presented by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy that recognizes American readers' favorite contemporary French fiction translated into English. The reading public was invited to vote at Albertine's website, and pretty much stuff the ballot box with their favorites.
This year's five nominees included:
Incest by Christine Angot, trans. by Tess Lewis, Archipelago Books
Compass by Mathias Enard, trans. by Charlotte Mandel, New Directions
The End of Eddy by Edouard Louis, trans. by Michael Lucey, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou, trans. by Helen Stevenson, The New Press
Not One Day by Anne Garréta, trans. by Emma Ramadan, Deep Vellum
Interest in the prize was drummed up on April 10 when LitHub's editor-in-chief Jonny Diamond, The New Yorker's H.C. Wilentz, Albertine's director Tom Roberge, and others shared their favorites.
The winner of the $10,000 prize was finally revealed to a packed house on Wednesday, June 6, with French literary critic and la Grande Librarie host François Busnel and translator Lydia Davis. The grand prize went to Anne Garréta's Not One Day (Deep Vellum, 2017) translated by Emma Ramadan. Garréta's twelve vignettes exploring memory and desire was originally published as Pas Un Jour in 2002 (éditions Grasset) and awarded the prestigious Prix Medicis. The winnings are split between author and translator and assure the book greater exposure to an English-speaking audience. Congratulations to the winners!
Photo courtesy of the French Embassy of New York
