In the second edition of the translation open call, FLAD selected six books proposed by publishing companies to support their translation. Among them is the English translation of the biography of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, “O Mundo Não Tem de Ser Assim” and “Armários Vazios” by Maria Judite de Carvalho, and also the Portuguese translation of “The Undying” by Anne Boyer, a book that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize.

FLAD held in May the 2nd edition of its open call for the translation of literary works. This program aims to support national publishing companies, at a difficult time for this sector, to publish translated books by American authors who would not otherwise reach Portuguese bookstores and promote Portuguese authors in the United States.

After the five books selected in 2020, six more books were chosen: two translations from Portuguese into English and four from English to Portuguese.

See down below the books whose translation FLAD decided to support in this edition of the open call. The next edition takes place between the 1st and the 31st of October of 2021.

Chosen Books

Book: O Mundo Não Tem de Ser Assim – Biografia de António Guterres
Author: Pedro Latoeiro and Filipe Domingues
Publishing company: LEYA

Synopsis: With the participation of António Guterres, O Mundo Não Tem de Ser Assim offers the most complete picture of the political and humanitarian journey of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Based on more than 120 interviews – to former Heads of State and Government, Senior UN Officials and close friends of former Portuguese Prime-Minister – this biography tells the story of António Guterres from the awakening of his political conscience to his work on the most pressing issues of the 21st century, such as the rights of minorities and the migration phenomena, globalized terrorism and interreligious dialogue, or the reform of the United Nations itself. Revealing unpublished episodes and documents, this work also makes known the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that tried to sabotage the Portuguese application for the post of Secretary-General of the UN and the relationship of António Guterres with the two major world powers, the United States of America and China.

Book: Os Armários Vazios
Author: Maria Judite de Carvalho
Publishing company: Minotauro
Request: The Center for the Art of Translation

Synopsis: The great novel by Maria Judite de Carvalho, a central book of Portuguese literature within the renewal of the mid-20th century, returns to the themes of preference of the author: the loneliness of women in the city. The modern life that binds the characters of Maria Judite de Carvalho to the hell of living alone in the crowd. This work is part of the National Reading Plan, as a recommended book for adult training.

Book: Living My Life
Author: Emma Goldman
Publishing company: Penguin and Dover Books
Request: Antígona – Editores Refractários

Synopsis: Anarchist, journalist, critic, and advocate of methods of contraception and free love, Emma Goldman was the most famous woman in the early 20th century. Her two-volume autobiography takes us from her birthplace in Russia of the Tsars to the Socialist enclaves of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Between political debates, trials, imprisonment, and tumultuous romances, the author recounts the time she herself helped shape: the reformist movements of the Progressive Era, the early years and the later disillusionment of Lenin’s Bolshevik experience, and more.

Book: Home
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Publishing company: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Request : Relógio D’Água Editores

Synopsis: After winning the prestigious Pulitzer Prize with Gilead, Home emerges, a moving novel about family secrets, the passing of generations, love, death, and faith. This novel tells the story of Glory Boughton, who at the age of 38 returns to Gilead to take care of her terminally ill father. Shortly after, Jack – the family’s prodigal son, who has been away for twenty years – also returns home, seeking refuge and making peace with a past filled with trouble and pain. This work was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2008.

Book: The Undying
Author: Anne Boyer
Publishing company: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Request: Tinta da China

Synopsis: Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, The Undying tells the story of the author, the poet Anne Boyer, when a week after her 41st birthday she is diagnosed with an extremely aggressive type of breast cancer. As a single mother, with limited resources, she recounts her journey through the experience of the disease and the entire ecosystem created around cancer, from the pharmaceutical industry to misinformation, with a passage through the vast literature created by women around their own diseases and death.

Book: Dwelling: An ecopoem
Author: Scott Edward Anderson
Publishing company: Shanti Arts Publishing
Request: Poética Edições

Synopsis: Winner of the 2019 Nautilus Award, Dwelling: An ecopoem is a sequence of poems and prose questions that begin as a conversation with Martin Heidegger’s essay Building Dwelling Thinking and turns into an expansive journey about the notion of home and how this idea haunts us.

Upcoming editions

This year, the open call will return between the 1st and 31st of October of 2021. FLAD’s decision will be announced until the last day of the month following the end of each edition of the open call.

If you have questions or need more information, please contact us at fladport@flad.pt.

See you soon!