Author takes the 2020 John Florio Prize for her ‘exceptional’ and ‘agile’ translation from Italian of Trick by Domenico Starnone.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri has won the John Florio Prize for translating Domenico Starnone’s 2016 novel, Trick.

The John Florio Prize is a biennial award of £2,000 for published translations of full-length Italian works of imaginative and creative writing of literary merit and general interest.

Established in 1963 and named for John Florio, the prize is generously sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Society of Authors.

The judges this year were Robert Gordon and Rosa Mucignat. Commenting on Lahiri’s translation, Rosa Mucignat said: 

“Jhumpa Lahiri has given us not so much a translation as an English double of Starnone’s humorous, unpredictable and formally sleek novel … Her English is as responsive and as agile as Starnone’s Italian prose.”

Lahiri also will be coming up with her new novel this year, after nearly a decade. Titled Whereabouts, it is the English translation of her first Italian novel. Speaking on the book, the author said, “I am so grateful to Meru Gokhale and to all at Penguin Random House India for following me on my creative journey and publishing this new novel, born from my love of a new language.”