Bruno Mazzoni and Steinar Lone win Romanian Cultural Institute's translation award

Bruno Mazzon i and Steinar Lone are the recipients of this year's award for the best translation of a book from Romanian into a foreign language offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR).

Bruno Mazzoni (pictured left) won the award for his translation into Italian of Ana Blandiana's Variations on a given theme, while Steinar Lone for the Norwegian translation of Mircea Cărtărescu's novel Solenoid. Both volumes were published with the support of ICR through the 2023 Translation and Publication Support program.

The jury recognized Mazzoni's "skill with which he translated into the Italian language the subtleties and grace of Ana Blandiana's poetic universe, an approach that furthers a translator's work and a career generously dedicated to the Romanian language and literature." Lone was praised "for his daring translation into Norwegian of the novel Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, a masterful success that is yet another testimony of his lasting and deep attachment to today's Romanian literature."

Bruno Mazzoni is a professor of Romanian language and literature at the Department of Philology, Literature, and Linguistics of the University of Pisa. He translated into Italian works by Mircea Cărtărescu, Ana Blandiana, Max Blecher, Herta Müller, and Cătălin Pavel and published studies on Tudor Arghezi, Ion Barbu, and Nichita Stănescu.

Steinar Lone translates from Romanian, French, and Italian into Norwegian. In 2008, the Norwegian Critics Union awarded him the prize for the best literary translation for his work on Mircea Cărtărescu's Blinding - The Left Wing. In addition to translations of works by Mircea Cărtărescu, Gellu Naum, Filip Florian, and Dan Lungu, Lone also translated volumes by Mircea Eliade, Mihail Sadoveanu, Camil Petrescu, and Mihail Sebastian.

The winners of this year's prize were selected from an initial list of 61 translations published in 2023 with the support of ICR. The judging commission included Oana Fotache Dubălaru, the dean of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest, translator Luminiţa Munteanu, the coordinator of the Turkish Language and Literature Section and the director of the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Bucharest, and literary agent Livia Stoia.

The award was announced at the twelfth edition of the International Festival of Literature and Translation in Iași (FILIT).

(Photos courtesy of ICR/FILIT)