The PEN Translation Prize is awarded to book-length translations from any language into English. The prize has been supported since 1963 in recognition of the art of the literary translator—the first American award to do so. The most recent recipients are: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for their translation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, R. W. Flint's translation of The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese, Margaret Sayers Peden's translation of Sepharad by Antonio Muñoz Molina, Philip Gabriel for his translation of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, and Sandra Smith for her translation of Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky.

2008 judges: John Balcom, Mary Ann Caws, and Shelley Frisch

The 2007 PEN Literary Awards will be presented in New York on the evening of Monday, May 19, at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. Members of the press are welcome to attend. Members of the press are welcome to attend.

For more information contact Literary Awards Coordinator Nick Burd: (212) 334-1660, ext. 108, awards@pen.org

Please click here for more information on this award.

This year’s award goes to Margaret Jull Costa for her translation from the Portuguese of The Maias (New Directions) by Eça de Queirós.

From the judges' citation: “Over the years Margaret Jull Costa has produced a number of notable translations of the fiction of Eça de Queirós, the great Portuguese novelist, who is widely considered to be one of the major European novelists of the 19th century, often ranked with Flaubert, Balzac, Dickens, and Tolstoy. Most recently, Margaret Jull Costa turned her hand to Os Maias, Eça de Queirós’s greatest work, and the results are stunning. The sensuous elegance of the prose vividly captures the greatness of the original, bringing the novel to life for the reader in a way only the most masterful of translations can do. Clearly a labor of love, Margaret Jull Costa’s brilliant translation of The Maias stands as a masterpiece in its own right. Eça de Queirós lives in English!”