The International Booker Prize 2026 nominated author and translator on writing about life on the margins, and how the hyperlocal can allow us to think global
Antonella Lettieri
Antonella Lettieri is a translator working between English and Italian
Her translations include Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter (2024), Roberta Recchia’s All That Is Left of Life (2025), and Matteo Melchiorre’s The Duke, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.
She was the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentee for Italian in 2023 and won the John Dryden Translation Competition in the same year. Her work has also appeared in Asymptote, The White Review Writing in Translation Anthology, The Southern Review, and La Piccioletta Barca.
Author photo © Megan Taylor
The village itself is one of the strongest ‘characters’ and we loved the feeling of claustrophobia of the place as the narrative unfolds. Packed full of plot twists, this is storytelling at its best
The International Booker Prize 2026 judges on The Duke
All nominated books
A character study of both its protagonists and of life in a tiny mountain village governed by nature, The Duke presents a new vision of Italy
Translated by Antonella Lettieri
