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Sophie Hughes (Literary Translation, 2016)

Sophie Hughes

Shortlisted in 2016 for Literary Translation

After graduating with a Masters degree in Comparative Literature in 2011, Sophie immersed herself in Mexican culture, living in Mexico City and working as Mexico Editor-at-large for the international journal Asymptote, and guest editing a feature for Words Without Borders. She has also translated journalistic pieces on contemporary Mexico for English PEN, the Guardian, and a section of The Sorrows of Mexico (MacLehose Press), a collection of essays on the assassination of journalists in the country.

Sophie’s first published book was the translation of Spanish author Iván Repila’s stark, allegorical novel The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse (Pushkin Press), with her rendition being described by the Irish Times as a ‘faultless, rhythmic translation that enables the bleak narrative to soar’.

In 2015 she was awarded a British Centre for Literary Translation Mentorship, and she has since translated novels by numerous Spanish and Latin American authors, including Rodrigo Hasbún (Granta Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists) and author Laia Jufresa (Hay30, Bogotá39 and México20 author). Her translation of Jufresa’s Umami (Oneworld, 2016) was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award 2017.

In 2017, Sophie was awarded a PEN/Heim Literary Translation Grant to translate Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerán’s debut novel La Resta. Her co-translation, with Amanda Hopkinson, of José Revueltas’s novel El Apando is forthcoming with New Directions, and will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 global protest movement.