To the Editors:
I’d like to introduce your readers to a new literary prize from Albertine, New York’s only French-language bookstore, which offers titles in both French and English translation. The Albertine Prize is a reader’s choice award for the best contemporary French fiction in translation. It aims to introduce American audiences to the best current French and Francophone literature while celebrating the US publishers and translators who helped bring them here. The winning author and translator will be recognized at a ceremony hosted by our two honorary chairs, author and translator Lydia Davis and literary critic and TV and radio host François Busnel.
The ten novels on the Albertine shortlist are as follows: Couple Mechanics, by Nelly Alard, translated by Adriana Hunter (Other Press); Constellation, by Adrien Bosc, translated by Willard Wood (Other Press); The Heart, by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Sam Taylor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Eve Out of Her Ruins, by Ananda Devi, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Deep Vellum); The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, by Lola Lafon, translated by Nick Caistor (Seven Stories Press); Suite for Barbara Loden, by Nathalie Léger, translated by Natasha Lehrer and Cécile Menon (Dorothy); Ladivine, by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump (Knopf); Infidels, by Abdellah Taïa, translated by Alison Strayer (Seven Stories Press); Naked, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated by Edward Gauvin (Dalkey Archive); and Bardo or Not Bardo, by Antoine Volodine, translated by J.T. Mahany (Open Letter).
We hope that readers of The New York Review of Books will take this opportunity to discover one or several of these great books and will vote for their favorite titles before April 30 at albertine.com/albertine-prize. Additional information about the books and events related to the prize can also be found at albertine.com.
Bénédicte de Montlaur
Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in the United States
New York City
