On 22 October, as part of the Week of the Italian Language in the World, the Italian Cultural Institute in Mexico City hosted the award ceremony of the 4th edition of “M’illumino d’immenso. International award for the best translation of Italian poetry into Spanish”.
Created in 2018, the poetry translation award is an initiative of the Italian Cultural Institutes of Mexico City, Cairo and Prague and aims to promote the translation and dissemination of Italian and Italian-Swiss poetry in Spanish, Arabic and Czech-speaking countries.
The event is organized by poets Vanni Bianconi (Switzerland) and Fabio Morábito (Mexico), and by Barbara Bertoni (Italy), director of the Trādūxit Laboratory, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute of Mexico City and the Embassy of Switzerland in Mexico, and under the patronage of Biblioteche di Roma (the network of the libraries of Rome).
For this year’s edition of the poetry award, the participants were asked to translate two poems: “S” by Italian poet Antonella Anedda and “SE”, written in Italian by Swiss poet Giovanni Orelli.
The best translation award went to Spanish translator Beatriz de la Fuente, who won 13,000 Mexican pesos, a one-week stay at “La Casa delle Traduzioni delle Biblioteche” in Rome, free participation to a course offered by the Italian Cultural Institute of Mexico City, an annual subscription to Ametli (Mexican Association of Literary Translators) and the publication of her translations.
The translation by Colombian translator Alfonso Conde Rivera also won an honorable mention assigned by the jury.
The 2021 contest featured the works of 201 translators from 19 different countries, including: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA and Venezuela.
The second edition of the “M’illumino d’immenso” prize for Arabic-speaking countries and the first edition in the Czech Republic were also held this year, thanks to the support of the Italian Cultural Institutes of Cairo and Prague, the Embassies of Switzerland in Egypt and the Czech Republic, and the Libraries of Rome.
