We are thrilled to announce that Barbara Epler, president and publisher of New Directions Publishing Company, has been selected to receive the 2016 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature.

“Throughout her long and illustrious tenure at New Directions, Barbara Epler has broadened our literary tastes by introducing us to some of the world’s great writers,” said Words Without Borders Board Chair Samantha Schnee. “For her unyielding commitment to international literature in translation, we are delighted to honor her with the Ottaway Award.”

The list of international writers Barbara Epler has published includes such luminaries as W.G. Sebald, Roberto Bolaño, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, César Aira, Inger Christensen, Yoel Hoffmann, Yoko Tawada, Eka Kurniawan, and Clarice Lispector.

The Ottaway Award will be presented at the annual Words Without Borders gala on November 1, 2016, in New York City, co-chaired by Anthony and Margo Viscusi and Jennifer Staff Johnson. (For more information about WWB’s 2016 gala, 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 have included the renowned editor Drenka Willen, the late editor and translator Carol Brown Janeway, and accomplished publisher Sara Bershtel.