We are thrilled to announce that Jill Schoolman, founder and publisher of Archipelago Books, has been selected to receive the 2017 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature.

“As physical and political borders close in around us, Jill Schoolman’s Archipelago Books offers a safe harbor to literary talent from around the world, infusing our bookshelves with vital and original work in translation,” said Words Without Borders Board Chair Samantha Schnee. “We are thrilled to celebrate her heroic efforts with this year’s Ottaway Award.”

Throughout her career as an editor and publisher, Schoolman has been a leading voice for the promotion of international literature. In 2003, she founded Archipelago Books with the mission to publish essential foreign-language texts in outstanding English translations. The list of international writers Jill Schoolman has published includes such luminaries as Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elias Khoury, Scholastique Mukasonga, Miljenko Jergovic, Julio Cortázar, Antonio Tabucchi, Magdalena Tulli, and Wiesław Myśliwski.

The Ottaway Award will be presented at the annual Words Without Borders gala on November 1, 2017, in New York City. (For more information about WWB’s 2017 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 fostering cultural understanding through the publication and promotion of international literature. Past awardees include the renowned editor Drenka Willen, the late editor and translator Carol Brown Janeway, and accomplished publishers Sara Bershtel and Barbara Epler.