We are pleased to announce that Chad W. Post, director of Open Letter Books and managing editor of Three Percent, will receive the 2018 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature.
“Through his vital work with Open Letter, the Translation Database, his Three Percent blog, and founding of the Best Translated Book Award, Chad Post has done more than perhaps any other individual to identify and begin to fill the void for translated literature in the US,” said Words Without Borders Board Chair Samantha Schnee. “We are thrilled to celebrate his tremendous contributions and achievements with this year’s Ottaway Award.”
For more than a decade, Chad W. Post has been a leading voice for the promotion of international literature. Since 2007 he has directed Open Letter Books, a press at the University of Rochester dedicated to publishing contemporary literature from around the world. Under Post’s direction, Open Letter has published over 100 books from more than forty-four countries and twenty-six languages, including works by such contemporary heavyweights as Naja Marie Aidt, Dubravka Ugresic, Bae Suah, Can Xue, Sergio Chejfec, and Mathias Énard. Post is also the managing editor of Three Percent, a blog and review site that promotes literature in translation and has generated a number of related projects, including the Translation Database, the only database of its kind in the world, and the Best Translated Book Awards, one of the most prestigious awards for international literature.
The Ottaway Award will be presented to Post by Deep Vellum publisher Will Evans at the Words Without Borders 15th Anniversary Gala on October 30, 2018, in New York City. (For more information about WWB’s 2018 gala or to purchase a table, please contact giving@wordswithoutborders.org.)
Named in honor of the first chair of Words Without Borders, James H. Ottaway, Jr., the Ottaway Award recognizes an individual whose work and activism have supported WWB’s mission of promoting cultural understanding through the publication and promotion of international literature. Past awardees include Jill Schoolman, Barbara Epler, Sara Bershtel, the late Carol Brown Janeway, and Drenka Willen.
