Italian – John Florio Prize

The John Florio Prize is a biennial award for translations into English of full length Italian works of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and a runner-up is awarded £1,000.

Established in 1963 and named for the writer-translator John Florio, who lived in London 1555-1625, the prize is generously sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Society of Authors.

The John Florio Prize is now open for submissions. Please apply below.
Deadline for entries: 31 March 2024.


A biennial prize for published translations of full-length Italian works of imaginative and creative writing of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and the runner-up is awarded £1,000.

The John Florio Prize for the translation of Italian into English was established in 1963 and named for the writer-translator John Florio, who lived in London from 1555-1625. The prize is generously sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute.

Entry Deadline: Sunday 31st March 2024 

Entry criteria

1. The original must have been first published in the last 150 years.
2. The translation must have been first published in the UK in 2022 or 2023.
3. Submissions must not contain AI generated works.
4. Maximum two entries per imprint.

Conditions of entry

The decision of the judges is final and they reserve the right not to award the Prize if, in their opinion, no works entered reach a sufficiently high standard. Judges may call in books if they so wish.

Current employees (or anyone directly connected with the administration of the Society of Authors’ grants and prizes) or members of the SoA Management Committee may not apply for any of the grants and prizes administered by the Society of Authors.

It is a condition of entry that publishers will put the award logo or “2024 John Florio Prize Winner” or “Shortlisted for the John Florio Prize 2024”, on the cover of subsequent editions of winning/shortlisted books. We have designed roundels with this information on them if you’d like to use those.

How to Enter

1. Submissions must be made by the publisher.
2. Please upload a digital copy of the text in both languages to this application or send the files to [email protected].
3. Once this form is completed please send five physical copies of the translation and four physical copies of the Italian text (all non-returnable) to:

John Florio Prize
Prizes department
Society of Authors
24 Bedford road
London
WC1R 4EH

Couriers should be advised to use the Theobalds road entrance.

The prize will be celebrated at the annual Translation Prizes ceremony in 2025. For any queries, please email [email protected]

Submissions must be made by the print publisher
The translation must have been first published in the UK in 2022 or 2023.
The original must have been first published in the last 150 years.
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
Maximum two entries per imprint
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
Please provide a short bio. This may typically include recent publications, the name, date, and details of previous prizes won, education, training, and career background, and pronouns.
I agree to abide by the conditions of entry. I confirm that the translator and translation meet the criteria for entry as detailed above.
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The 2022 John Florio Prize winner and runner-up


Winner:
Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda for a translation of My Karst and My City by Scipio Slataper (University of Toronto Press) 

Runner-Ups
J Ockenden for a translation of Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini (Peirene Press) 
Tim Parks for translations of The House on The Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese (Penguin Press) 


2022 (presented 2023)

Winner: Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda for a translation of My Karst and My City by Scipio Slataper (University of Toronto Press)
Runner-up: J Ockenden for a translation of Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini (Peirene Press)
Runner-up: Tim Parks for translations of The House on The Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese (Penguin Press)

Shortlistees:
Elena Pala for a translation The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion)
Stash Luczkwi for a translation of Without Ever Reaching the Summit by Paolo Cognetti (Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House UK)
Stephen Twilley for a translation of Diary of a Foreigner in Paris by Curzio Malaparte (New York Review Books)

2020 (presented 2021)

Winner: Jhumpa Lahiri for her translation of Trick by Domenico Starnone (Europa Editions)

Runner-up: Jenny McPhee for her translation of The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte (New York Review Books)
Shortlistees: Anne Milano Appel for a translation of A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig (World Editions)
Ekin Oklap for a translation of Flowers Over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 
Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnson for a translation of Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli by Giovanni Pascoli (Princeton University Press)
Howard Curtis for a translation of Soul of the Border by Matteo Righetto (Pushkin Press) 


2018 (presented 2019)

Winner: Gini Alhadeff for her translation of I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy (And Other Stories)
Runner-up: Cristina Viti for her translation of Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari (Shearsman Books)
Shortlistees: Jamie McKendrick for his translation of Within the Walls by Giorgio Bassani (Penguin Classics)
Mario Petrucci for his translation of Xenia by Eugenio Montale (Arc Publications)
Cristina Viti for her translation of The World Saved by Kids by Elsa Morante (Seagull Books)

2016 (presented 2017)

Winner: Jamie McKendrick for his translation of Archipelago by Antonella Anedda (Bloodaxe Books)
Commended: Richard Dixon for his translation of Numero Zero by Umberto Eco (Harvill Secker/Vintage)
2014 (presented 2015)
Winner: Patrick Creagh for his translation of Memory Of The Abyss by Marcello Fois (MacLehose Press) 
Commended: Cristina Viti for her translation of A Life Apart by Mariapia Veladiano (MacLehose Press)

2012

Winner: Anne Milano Appel for her translation of Scent of a Woman (pictured centre) by Giovanni Arpino (Penguin Classics)
Commended: Howard Curtis for his translation of In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda (Harvill Secker)
Commended: Shaun Whiteside for his translation of Stabat Mater (pictured far right) by Tiziano Scarpa (Serpant’s Tail)

2010

Jamie McKendrick for The Embrace: Selected Poems by Valerio Magrelli (Faber)
Runner-up: Abigail Asher for The Natural Order of Things by Andrea Canobbio (MacLehose Press)

2008

Winner: Peter Robinson for the greener meadow by Luciano Erba (Princeton University Press)
Runner up: Alastair McEwen for Turning Back the Clock by Umberto Eco (Harvill Secker)

2006

Winner: Carol O’Sullivan and Martin Thom for Kuraj by Silvia Di Natale (Bloomsbury)
Runner up: Aubrey Botsford for The Ballad of the Low Lifes by Enrico Remmert (Toby Press)

2004

Winner: Howard Curtis for Coming Back by Edoardo Albinati (Hesperus Press)

2002

Winner: Stephen Sartarelli for Prince of the Clouds by Gianni Riotta (HarperCollins)
and Alastair McEwen for Senior Service by Carlo Feltrinelli (Granta Books)

2000

Winner: Martin McLaughlin for Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino Jonathan (Cape)

1998

Winner: Joseph Farrell for Take-Off by Daniele del Giudice (Harvill)

1996

Winner: Emma Rose for His Mother’s House by Marta Morazzoni (Harvill)

1994

Winner: Tim Parks for The Road to San Giovanni by Italo Calvino (Jonathan Cape)

1992

Winner: William Weaver for The Dust Roads of Monferrato by Rosetta Loy (Collins) and Tim Parks forSweet Days of Disciplone by Fleur Jaeggy (Heinemann)

1990

Winner: Patrick Creagh for Danube by Claudio Magris (Collins Harvill) and Patrick Creagh for Blind Argus by Gesualdo Bufalino (Collins Harvill)

1988

Winner: J.G. Nichols for The Colloquies of Guido Gozzano (Carcanet)

1986

Winner: Avril Bardoni for The Wine Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia (Carcanet)

1984

Winner: Bruce Penman for China by Gildo Fossati (New English Library)

1982

Winner: Christopher Holme for EBLA by Paolo Matthiae

1980

Winner: Julian Mitchell for Henry IV by Pirandello

1979

Winner: Quintin Hoare for Selections from Political Writings 1921-26 by Antonio Gramsci

1977

Winner: Ruth Feldman & Brian Swann for Shema, Collected Poems of Primo Levi

1976

Winner: Frances Frenaye for The Forests of Norbio by Guiseppe Dessi (Menard Press)

1975

Winner: Cormack O’Cuilleanain for Cagliostro by Roberto Gervaso (Gollancz)

1974

Winner: Stephen M. Hellman for Letters from inside the Italian Communist Party by Maria Antonietta Macciocchi (New Left Books)

1973

Winner: Bernard Wall and Wrestling with Christ by Luigi Santucci (Collins)

1972

Winner: Patrick Creagh for Selected Poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti (Penguin)

1971

Winner: William Weaver for The Heron by Giorgio Bassani (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and for Time and the Hunter by Italo Calvino (Jonathan Cape)

1970

Winner: Angus Davidson for On Neoclassicism by Mario Praz (Thames & Hudson)

1969

Winner: Sacha Rabinovitch for Francis Bacon, from Magic to Science by Paolo Rossi (Routledge & Kegan Paul) and William Weaver for A Violent Life by Pier Pasolini (Jonathan Cape)

1968

Winner: Muriel Grindrod for The Popes in the 20th Century by Carol Falconi (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and Raleigh Trevelyan for
The Outlaws by Luigi Meneghello (Michael Joseph)

1967

Winner: Isabel Quigly for The Transfers by Silvano Ceccherini (Eyre & Spottiswoode)

1966

Winner: Stuart Woolf for The Truce by Primo Levi (The Bodley Head) and Jane Grigson & Father Kenelm Foster for The Column of Infamy of Crime and Punishments prefaced by Allesandro Manzoni & Cesare Beccaria (OUP)

1965

Winner: W.H. Darwell for Dongo, The Last Act by P.L. Belline delle Stelli & U. Lazzaro (Macdonald)

1964

Winner: Angus Davidson More Roman Tales by Alberto Moravia, Professor E.R. Vincent for A Diary of One of Garibaldi’s Thousands by G. C. Abbas and H.S. Vere-Hodge for The Odes of Dante

1963

Winner: Donata Origo for The Deserter by Guiseppe Dessi and Eric Mosbacher for Hekura by Fosco Maraini

2023

Elena Minelli
The seven books shortlisted are excellent samples of different literary genres: fiction, classic literature and academic books. They all present significant challenges in terms of grammar, lexis and style. All the translators were able to transfer beautifully and accurately the poetic tones, while retaining the content of the original texts.

Mario Petrucci
Re-stating the cliché often espoused by judges, it’s always extremely difficult to compare – on any linear/scalar spectrum of ‘winner/non-winner’ – the complex merits of so various a collection of books. How does one rate, for instance, a limpid, luminous account of a Himalayan pilgrimage against a detailed, highly-wrought treatise on Italian Modernism? That’s where having complementary judges really helped to disentangle the Gordian, combining my own long-term experience as Anglo-Italian author and translator with Elena’s expert academic view as Italian linguist and translation teacher. We found ourselves constantly revisiting that eternal conundrum of translation: how to assess the thermoplastic dynamic between fidelity and flair, creative freedom and accuracy. I sometimes think of translation as an arranged marriage between graft and craft, othertimes as a tricky love affair between two languages who live quite close to each other but can never wholly consummate! We know that no translation, however meticulous or ingenious, can ever attain perfect oneness with its original, and it’s clear that all our translators grappled variously with the profound challenges of capturing tone, dialect, and (a feature of translations too often overlooked) rhythm. Yes, it’s easy to tell when translations go wildly wrong, as in this example reputedly signposted in a Nairobi restaurant: “Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager”. Unintentional humour is probably a translator’s worst nightmare; but, even in our best efforts, we can get most of the words mostly right only to discover that the tiniest lapse throws everything off. Glaring miscalculations aside, the efficiency and sonority of a literary translation depends on a highly complex transaction, a multi-level negotiation involving common sense, creative nuance, the vicissitudes of trial and error, and plain hard work. Moreover, any judgement of outcome is necessarily subjective: how far does an individual reader/judge tolerate, for instance, any ‘rewriting’ or licence in the target language? In testing translators, then, one has to humbly test one’s own (sometimes most ambiguous, most hazy) limits. Wittgenstein wrote: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. All the shortlisted and winning books in this particular John Florio year resoundingly deserved their place; but let’s welcome them now into that larger enterprise for which this prize is such a significant host: the ongoing, crucial work of valuing translations and translators that continues to enlarge us all.

Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Londra

The Italian Cultural Institute in London, an official body of the Italian state, has the objective of promoting and spreading the Italian language and culture in England and Wales through the organization of cultural events to encourage the circulation of ideas, the arts and of the sciences.