The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' Master of Fine Arts in Literary Translation is the oldest dedicated program in the country, but reputation and longevity don't fully explain what draws writers here. The work—the painstaking, generative labor of carrying a poem or a story across languages is what drives students in the program.

Great translation might aim to be undetected,  but that does not meaning it always goes unnoticed. From 2025–2026, five students from the department of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures, and Cultures' translation MFA program have received prestigious recognition from PEN America and the American-Scandinavian Foundation for their work.

Four received PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, awarded annually to support the translation of significant works of poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction into English. 

One received the Nadia Christensen Prize, an international acknowledgment given by the American-Scandinavian Foundation to recognize outstanding translation of Scandinavian literature.

Join CLAS in celebrating the outstanding accomplishments of these students and recent graduates.

PEN/Heim Award

PEN America

The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant supports translators in bringing world literature into English, providing up to $4,000 for projects. Established in 2003, it funds fiction, poetry, and drama, often supporting emerging translators.

Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translation from the Kven and Norwegian of The Heart of the Forest by M. Seppola Simonsen

The Heart of the Forest (published in Norway as Hjerteskog/Syđänmettä) is an award-winning poetry collection by M. Seppola Simonsen, a poet from the Norwegian island of Senja. Written in both Norwegian and Kven, the collection's spare, precise poems move through questions of Kven heritage, identity, language, and place—a particularly resonant set of themes given that Kven, a Finnic minority language, has fewer than 10,000 speakers worldwide.

Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translations have appeared widely in anthologies and literary magazines. Her translations vividly capture Simonsen’s imagery and their ability to render the power and complexity of nature and humanity’s place in it.

“This award is meaningful to me as a vote of confidence in my work as a translator and the work of the poet I’m translating, M. Seppola Simonsen. I’m grateful to my professors in the literary translation program, especially Drs. Aron Aji, Jan Steyn, and Nataša Ďurovičová,” Falck said.

A Brief History of Failure by Fátima Villalta, translated by Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley

Originally published in Spanish as Breve Historia del Fracaso, this short story collection brings together nine stories that trace a century of Nicaraguan life through the eyes of ordinary people. Fátima Villalta is part of a new generation of Central American writers whose work explores memory, displacement, and social fracture. She now lives in exile in Mexico. 

Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley worked closely together in translation to bring forward the varied voices of the collection while preserving its emotional intimacy and historical depth for English-language readers.

"It means a lot to me to be able to bring literature from smaller countries such as Nicaragua to a broader audience," Sanabria Contreras said. "That's what I set out to do when I became a literary translator. Of course I'm very grateful for the financial support, but I am even more excited about the doors the grant might open to us in terms of finding publication for Fátima's work."

"Winning this grant has provided not just financial support, but also placed my name, along with Milena's, and our project, on a prestigious prize that is seen across the country, which is really exciting," Stickley said. "Visibility from such a well-known organization will certainly help me to continue establishing myself as a translator and my ability to chose quality projects to work on. My PhD dissertation will involve translation, and having won a PEN/Heim grant has reminded me that good projects can take some time to pay off, but it's worth it!"

Quentin Véron’s translation from the French of Solitude of a Python in Paris by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar)

Romain Gary’s Gros Câlin, first published in 1974 under the pseudonym Émile Ajar, occupies a unique and fascinating place in French literary history. 

When the author’s true identity was revealed after his death, it was hailed as one of the great literary revelations of the century—unmasking the only writer ever to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt twice. Gros-Câlin (“Big Hug” in English) tells the story of Michel Cousin, a lonely and eccentric Parisian statistician who adopts an eight-foot python in his quest for affection. 

With sensitivity, wit, and creative daring, Quentin Véron recreates in English the puzzling “foreign” language that a bored Cousin invents for himself, through which themes of affection, alienation, and rebirth take on renewed resonance. Navigating the “deluge of amusing malapropisms, puns, literary allusions, and warmly pathetic situational comedy” (translator’s words) of Gary’s signature “Ajarism,” Véron deftly renders the novel’s humor, pathos, and linguistic playfulness without losing its peculiar absurdity and tenderness.

Nadia Christensen Prize

American-Scandinavian Foundation

The Nadia Christensen Prize is awarded by the American-Scandinavian Foundation and recognizes an outstanding translation of a literary text from a Nordic language into English and includes a $2,500 award.

Tabatha Leggett's translation from Finnish Maisku Myllymäki’s Holly

The 2025 Nadia Christensen Prize was awarded to Tabatha Leggett. Leggett received the prize for her translation of an excerpt from Holly, a novel by Finnish author Maisku Myllymäki first published in 2021. Awarding the prize, the jury noted her skill in rendering the novel's captivating and unsettling main character, and praised the way her translation brings the warmth, passion, and humor of Myllymäki's original into English.

Leggett is a writer and literary translator working between Finnish and English. She is currently an Iowa Arts Fellow in the MFA in literary translation program at the University of Iowa, and holds a Fiction MFA from New York University, where she was an Axinn Fellow. In 2020, she contributed a chapter on consciousness-raising to Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to a Life of Thought, published by Oxford University Press. A recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf and the Community of Writers, Leggett's translation of Riikka Pulkkinen's Enchantment is forthcoming with Scribe in 2026.

"It was such a joy to win the Nadia Christensen Prize for my translated excerpt of Holly," Leggett said. "Maisku Myllymäki's painterly depictions of island life and destabilizing exploration of what it means to inhabit a sexually desirous body drew me in immediately. As a heritage speaker of Finnish, translation has always felt enormously personal to me, and to have my work recognized by the ASF feels tremendously exciting. I hope the prize will lead to an English-language publication deal so that more readers can luxuriate in Holly's prismatic exploration of womanhood, sexuality, and shame."