Dantas Lobato Wins National Book Award for Translation

Congratulations to Bruna Dantas Lobato, assistant professor of English and creative writing, for her translation of The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

“It is an honor to bring this beautiful coming-of-age and coming-out novel from Brazil to a wider audience,” Dantas Lobato says. “My hope is that readers will approach it with an open heart, curiosity, and empathy, and appreciate its humanity.”

Born and raised in Natal, Brazil, Dantas Lobato’s translations of Brazilian literature have also received the English PEN Translates Award and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant.

As a fiction writer, Dantas Lobato’s debut novel, Blue Light Hours, was released in 2024 from Grove Atlantic in North America, Companhia das Letras/PRH in Brazil (in her own translation), Dasan in South Korea, and İş Kültür in Turkey. Blue Light Hours is the story of a young Brazilian woman’s first year in America, a continent away from her lonely mother, and the relationship they build over video calls across borders. The New York Times wrote, “By many measures, Bruna Dantas Lobato is quite the literary star.”

Dantas Lobato has also taught creative writing at New York University, Bennington College, Bread Loaf, the Center for Fiction, and Catapult. She holds an M.F.A. in fiction from NYU, an M.F.A. in literary translation from the University of Iowa, and a B.A. in literature and Latin American studies from Bennington College.