Spanish novel, Portuguese poems win translation awards

NEW YORK – A Spanish-language novel and a collection of Portuguese poetry have won prizes for best translated literature.

Yuri Herrera’s “Signs Preceding the End of the World,” translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction on Wednesday. The poetry prize has been given to Angélica Freitas’s “Rilke Shake,” translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan. Winning authors and translators each receive $5,000. The prize money is provided by Amazon.com.

Founded nine years ago, the translation awards are presented by Three Per cent, an online resource for international literature. Three Per cent is based at the University of Rochester and takes its name from the estimated percentage of books published annually in the U.S. that are works in translation.