The Loose Pearl by the Chilean poet Paula Ilabaca Núñez, translated by 2016 National Book Award for Poetry winner Daniel Borzutzky, received the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation on Thursday, March 2, 2023 during the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony at the Town Hall in New York City. Illinois State University’s Publications Unit Director Steve Halle, Ph.D. ’13, published the book in 2022 for his nonprofit small press imprint, co•im•press.
A second co•im•press book, claus and the scorpion by Galician poet Lara Dopazo Ruibal, translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin, was also among the 10 books longlisted for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
The PEN Award is the third major literary translation award Halle’s books have received since he founded the press in 2013. Valdivia by Chilean poet Galo Ghigliotto, translated by Daniel Borzutzky, received the 2017 National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), and Of Death. Minimal Odes by the Brazilian poet and writer Hilda Hilst, translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin, received the 2019 Best Translated Book Award for Poetry from Three Percent/University of Rochester.
Baba Badji, Mona Kareem, and Julia Leverone were the judges for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. The judges noted the following in their citation:
In this courageous translation of Paula Ilabaca Nuñez’s The Loose Pearl, Daniel Borzutzky moves through the prose and the poetic, acutely, to bring us closer to the vulnerability of language. With such risks, he takes translation into a new direction, opening a new conversation around the practice and the choice of the translator. Borzutzky introduces English readers to the work of Ilabaca Núñez not through a selection of her work, but with a specific artwork that she had first published on her blog in 2017 as a series of poems and images. The speaker in this book is split between the pearl and the loose one as she challenges her translator to carry her poems through gender, language, power, and sex. Ilabaca Núñez’s Spanish is neatly and brilliantly rendered so that the anguish of experience comes through; Borzutzky extends the legacy of revolutionary Chilean poetry through this deft work, adding to a complex national and global conversation about what poetry can do for, and in, the social and political spheres, and how translation raises words and bodies to the stage.
Halle credits graduate study in poetry at Illinois State and graduate assistantships with both the Publications Unit and the literary journal Mandorla as being formative for his work as an editor and publisher, allowing him to run his publishing company as a mostly two-hands operation. The only other person who works regularly for the press is Benjamin Sutton, Ph.D. ’19, who has been in the role of assistant editor since 2015 and helps Halle review submissions.
“I learned so many essential skills in nonprofit literary publishing during my graduate assistantship at the Publications Unit—not only practical skills like book design but also developing an aesthetic and a mission,” Halle said. “It gave me the confidence and skill set to start a press that publishes books that might be unpublishable by traditional means and that seek to challenge dominant narratives in contemporary literary publishing. While I don’t think about post-publication awards at all when selecting books like The Loose Pearl, I think winning awards gets important books to more readers and validates the vision for the press, which helps move things forward.”
Jessi Reid-Swiech, a logistics manager in the College of Education, collaborated with Halle on the The Loose Pearl’s design and production during a summer 2022 internship to complete her graphic design degree in the Wonsook Kim School of Art.
Halle said, “Since my mentors taught me so much when I was starting out in publishing, it’s important to me to use each book or magazine I work on as a vehicle for teaching and mentoring, which helps the next generation of emerging professionals get a foothold in the field through invaluable applied learning experiences.”
