The National Endowment for the Arts announced on Jan. 16 that Armine Kotin Mortimer, Professor Emerita of French and Italian, and Research Professor of French Literature, will receive a Literature Translation Fellowship of $12,500. The fellowship will support the translation from the French of Catherine Cusset’s novel Un brillant avenir (A Brilliant Future).
A Brilliant Future follows the life of 65-year-old Elena Tiberescu, a Romanian who immigrates to the United States. The novel alternates between the protagonist's childhood in communist Romania and her contemporary life in America, focusing on the parallels between her complex relationship with her parents and her fraught relationship with her daughter-in-law, Marie.
Cusset (b. 1963) is the author of 13 novels, several of which have been awarded France's most prestigious prizes. Her Life of David Hockney was published in 2019; that novel and The Story of Jane are her only books available in English.
In addition to her translation work, Dr. Mortimer has written extensively about French literature, including the book For Love or for Money: Balzac’s Rhetorical Realism. Her translations include Mysterious Mozart and Casanova the Irresistible by Philippe Sollers and The Enchanted Clock by Julia Kristeva.
Dr. Mortimer is one of only 24 Literature Translation Fellows in 2020. In all, the Arts Endowment will award $300,000 in grants to support the new translation of poetry, prose, and drama from 19 countries into English.