The John Florio Prize for Italian translation is awarded by the Society of Authors, with the co-sponsorship of the Italian Cultural Institute and Arts Council England. Named after the Tudor Anglo-Italian writer-translator John Florio, the prize was established in 1963. As of 1980 it is awarded biannually for the best English translation of a full-length work of literary merit and general interest from Italian.
Winners and shortlistees
1960–1979 annual run Year Translator Work Reference 1963 Donata Origo The Deserter by Giuseppe Dessi Eric Mosbacher Hekura by Fosco Maraini 1964 Angus Davidson More Roman Tales by Alberto Moravia H. S. Vere-Hodge The Odes of Dante Professor E. R. Vincent A Diary of One of Garibaldi's Thousand by Giuseppe Cesare Abba London : Oxford University Press, 1962Professor Eric Reginald Pearce Vincent; Bletchley Park 1965 W. H. Darwell Dongo: The Last Act by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle & Urbano Lazzaro 1966 Stuart Woolf The Truce by Primo Levi Jane Grigson and Father Kenelm Foster The Columns of Infamy of Crime and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria 1967 Isabel Quigly The Transfers by Silvano Ceccherini 1968 Muriel Grindrod The Popes in the 20th Century by Carlo Falconi Raleigh Trevelyan The Outlaws by Luigi Meneghello 1969 Sacha Rabinovitch Francis Bacon: from Magic to Science by Paolo Rossi William Weaver A Violent Life by Pier Pasolini 1970 Angus Davidson On Neoclassicism by Mario Praz 1971 William Weaver The Heron by Giorgio Bassani William Weaver Time and the Hunter by Italo Calvino 1972 Patrick Creagh Selected Poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti 1973 Bernard Wall Wrestling with Christ by Luigi Santucci 1974 Stephen M. Hellman Letters from Inside the Italian Communist Party by Maria Antonietta Macciocchi 1975 Cormac O’Cuilleanain Cagliostro by Roberto Gervaso 1976 Frances Frenaye The Forests of Norbio by Giuseppe Dessi 1977 Ruth Feldman & Brian Swann Shema, Collected Poems of Primo Levi 1979 Quintin Hoare Selections from Political Writings 1921–26 by Antonio Gramsci 1980–2004 biennial winners
Year Writer Work Reference 1980 Julian Mitchell Henry IV by Pirandello 1982 Christopher Holme Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered by Paolo Matthiae 1984 Bruce Penman China (The moments of civilisation) by Gildo Fossati 1986 Avril Bardoni The Wine Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia 1988 J. G. Nichols The Colloquies by Guido Gozzano 1990 Patrick Creagh Danube by Claudio Magris Patrick Creagh Blind Argus by Gesualdo Bufalino 1992 William Weaver The Dust Roads of Monferrato by Rosetta Loy Tim Parks Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy 1994 Tim Parks The Road to San Giovanni by Italo Calvino 1996 Emma Rose His Mother's House by Marta Morazzoni 1998 Joseph Farrell Take-off by Daniele del Giudice 2000 Martin McLaughlin Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino 2002 Stephen Sartarelli Prince of the Clouds by Gianni Riotta Alastair McEwen Senior Service by Carlo Feltrinelli 2004 Howard Curtis Coming Back by Edoardo Albinati 2006–present biennial winners, runners-up, and shortlisted works = winner Year Writer Work Result Reference 2006 Carol O’Sullivan and Martin Thom Kuraj by Silvia Di Natale Winner Aubrey Botsford The Ballad of the Low Lifes by Enrico Remmert Runner-up 2008 Peter Robinson The Greener Meadow by Luciano Erba Winner Alastair McEwen Turning Back the Clock by Umberto Eco Runner-up 2010 Jamie McKendrick The Embrace: Selected Poems by Valerio Magrelli Winner Abigail Asher The Natural Order of Things by Andrea Canobbio Runner-up 2012 Anne Milano Appel Scent of a Woman by Giovanni Arpino Winner Howard Curtis In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda Commended Shaun Whiteside Stabat Mater by Tiziano Scarpa Commended 2014 Patrick Creagh Memory of the Abyss by Marcello Fois Winner Cristina Viti A Life Apart by Mariapia Veladiano Commended 2016 Jamie McKendrick Archipelago by Antonella Anedda Winner Richard Dixon Numero Zero by Umberto Eco Commended 2018 Gini Alhadeff I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy Winner Cristina Viti Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari Runner-up Jamie McKendrick Within the Walls by Giorgio Bassani Shortlisted Mario Petrucci Xenia by Eugenio Montale Shortlisted Cristina Viti The World Saved by Kids by Elsa Morante Shortlisted 2020 Jhumpa Lahiri Trick by Domenico Starnone Winner Jenny McPhee The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte Runner-up Anne Milano Appel A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig Shortlisted Ekin Oklap Flowers Over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti Shortlisted Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnson Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli by Giovanni Pascoli Shortlisted Howard Curtis Soul of the Border by Matteo Righetto Shortlisted 2022 Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda My Karst and My City by Scipio Slataper Winner J Ockenden Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini Runner-up Tim Parks The House on The Hill and The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese Runner-up Elena Pala The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi Shortlisted Stash Luczkwi Without Ever Reaching the Summit by Paolo Cognetti Shortlisted Stephen Twilley Diary of a Foreigner in Paris by Curzio Malaparte Shortlisted
2024 judges
Maame Blue Maame Blue is a creative writing tutor and author of the novel Bad Love, which won the 2021 Betty Trask award. Her short stories have been published in three anthologies and her writing has appeared in Writers Mosaic, Refinery29 and The Author Magazine. Her second novel The Rest Of You will be published by Amistad (US) and Verve Books (UK) in Autumn 2024.
Jamie McKendrick Jamie McKendrick was born in Liverpool in 1955. He is the author of six collections of poetry, including The Marble Fly, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and a Poetry Book Society Choice; Ink Stone, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Crocodiles & Obelisks, shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Out There won the Hawthornden Prize. An earlier selection of his poems was published as Sky Nails, and he is editor of 20th-Century Italian Poems. The Embrace, his translations of Valerio Magrelli’s poetry, won the Oxford-Weidenfeld and the John Florio prizes.
Sandra Silipo Sandra Silipo has been studying and working with languages for over 30 years. She has a BA in Classics, an MA in Translation and an MA in Applied Linguistics. She has worked for the language industry in a variety of roles: as an associate lecturer and author for the Open University, as a free-lance translator, as a principal examiner for the IBO, as a language teacher and as a teachers’ trainer. Her profession has taught her that every word and every language tells a story. She loves to spend her time listening to those stories, and retelling them.
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