The Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin, in 2015.Bernardo Pérez
Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin (Buenos Aires, 44 years old) has won the National Book Award, one of the most prestigious in the United States and in English literature, for the translation of her volume of short stories Siete Casas Vacías. Schweblin’s book, published just a month ago in the United States in its English version by translator Megan McDowell, was selected this Wednesday evening as the major US publishing addition among this year’s translations. The magnitude of his triumph can be gauged by a precedent: the only Argentine to have received this award was Julio Cortázar, with the translation of Hopscotch in 1967.
Siete Casas Vacías was first published by Spanish publisher Páginas de Espuma in 2015 after it won the IV Ribera del Duero International Narrative Prize. With 27 issues in seven years, the collection of stories in which Schweblin pushes his explorations around affective violence, the loss of loved ones and illness to the limit has already become a reference in the Latin American narrative centered on the terror of the Everyday focused and the paranormal. “It is an anticipatory book of certain narratives of the unusual and literary perspectives that are now being disseminated in other voices. One of the first among them was Samanta,” Juan Casamayor, editor of Páginas de Espuma, told EL PAÍS. “In all this realm of the fantastic, from the restlessness and restlessness of Samanta to the darkness and terror of Mariana Enríquez, I believe that Seven Empty Houses has become without doubt a classic of the history of this first quarter century,” says the publisher , who also confirms that he is preparing the twenty-eighth edition of the book in Spain.
Writer Samanta Schweblin (right) and translator Megan McDowell during the 73rd awards ceremony in New York. Dia Dipasupil (Getty Images)
“I’m a short story writer, so I’ll keep it short, too,” Schweblin joked at the awards ceremony in New York on Wednesday night. “I feel privileged to have many people who have been a great support throughout these years: so I want to thank them, my partner, my family, some very special teachers that I have had in my life, many very special friends, Megan, my translator; to my editors, to Páginas de Espuma, who were the first to publish this book in Spanish; to my current editors, to the National Book Foundation,” said the Argentine writer, who has lived in Berlin since 2012.
It is his second award this year after receiving the José Donoso Ibero-American Literature Award for his career in Chile last September. On a particularly competitive stage, Schweblin has emerged as one of the most decorated Argentine writers of her generation since winning the Argentine National Endowment for the Arts Award in 2001 at the age of 24 for her first collection of short stories, Nucleo del Disturbio. He also won the 2008 Casa de las Américas Prize in Cuba, the 2012 Juan Rulfo Short Story Prize, the 2015 Tigre Juan Prize in Spain, and the 2018 Shirley Jackson Prize for his short novel Distancia de rescate. A year earlier, the same novel was a UK Man Booker finalist.
“Writers are people who struggle with words; the same as the translators. I always say that any kind of communication is a translation. And I’ve learned a lot from the authors’ communications files and from the translations,” said translator Megan McDowell, who will share the US National Book Foundation’s $10,000 award with the author. Her work deserves a special mention: translator McDowell has been shortlisted for the most prestigious awards for translations from Spanish five years in a row, along with other literary stars from America’s southern cone, such as Mariana Enríquez, Alejandro Zambra, Lina Meruane and Carlos Busqued.
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