Adria Bernardi Wins $20K Translation Prize

Adria Bernardi (left) has recieved a $20,000 grant from the Academy of American Poets to be applied towards her ongoing translation of Small Work, a collection by the Italian poet Raffaello Baldini. The annual Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Fellowship also comes with a residency at the American Academy in Rome. Bernardi’s initial efforts in this project were described by fellowship committee judge Geoffrey Brock as remarkable: “She produces a wonderfully kinetic mélange of speech and observation, catching exactly the hurry as well as the colloquial wisdom marking each poem,” Brock writes in his citation. “Each translation manages to create a true ‘character’—a persona through which we can hear the living sound of this bustling, crowded, factually packed, local life.”