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The work and life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz continues to be a guide and example centuries after her birth, on today’s date in 1648. This year, the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize decided to honor Sor Juana’s memory by using her as an inspiration to reflect on the role of contemporary Mexican literature in the United States. The novels that the jury read and discussed during the first half of the year are a testament that Mexican fiction is circulating more than ever in the United States thanks to first-rate translations and independent publishers that are offering the English-speaking reading public the possibility to enter into dialogue with voices that, until recently, were difficult to find in a literary market so robust, but so localized, such as that of the United States.

The short-list of finalists also verifies not only the quality of Mexican novels that can currently be read in English, but it also demonstrates that the intellectual and creative spaces in which a figure like Sor Juana struggled throughout her life have succeeded in opening up little by little thanks to thousands of women who have dedicated their lives to the fight for a more inclusive and equitable society. From this very talented group of writers and translators, the jury decided to award first prize to Sophie Hughes’s translation of Fernanda Melchor’s novel Hurricane Season. In addition, unanimously, the jury also requested a new runner-up prize for Andrea Rosenberg’s translation of the novel Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen.

For different reasons, both novels have had a strong impact on the recent Mexican literary world. With Hurricane Season, published in 2017, Fernanda Melchor became a benchmark of Mexican fiction inside and outside the country. Before its publication, Melchor was already known and celebrated in Mexico both for her first novel (Falsa liebre, 2013) and for a series of chronicles that reflected on the violence and inequality that exists in Mexico through the gaze of youth and childhood. Hurricane Season has these same building blocks, but it is also presented as a book with a dense and refined style that generates an oppressive atmosphere in which to tell the story of a murder. This way of narrating, at the same time painful and seductive, earned its author immediate international recognition, and the magnificent translation by Sophie Hughes has been the recipient of countless awards and mentions that have made it possible for this book about a small town in Mexico to circulate globally.

Campeón gabacho (2015), the first novel by Aura Xilonen, won the first issuance of the Mauricio Achar Prize for literature, organized by one of the most important and traditional bookstores in Mexico. The novel tells the story of a Mexican migrant in the United States who becomes a boxer. Almost as if suggesting the strong relationship between story and style, the novel is a knock-out that in an innovative and attractive style infects us with the feeling of living in a world between cultures. Andrea Rosenberg’s work in translating this difficult book deserves this award and much more for allowing English-speaking readers to get to know one of the most experimental young voices in Mexican literature.

Jorge Téllez is an Associate Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research centers around the topics of cultural heritage, material culture, and colonial legacies in Latin America.

The 2021 Translation Prize will be premiered LIVE on Youtube on November 18th, 2021 at 6:00 pm EST.