Once upon a time, Antonella Lettieri was a student¹ of English and Russian in Bologna. Then, on a dark and stormy night, she moved to London and started working as a translator.² Little did she know that that was only just the beginning...³

¹ Education

2024 - APNEA: Reading and editing course at I libri degli altri with Francesca de Lena

2023 – Start Writing Fiction: Creative writing course at the National Centre for Writing with Melissa Fu

2022 – Bristol Translates: Literary translation summer school at the University of Bristol with Howard Curtis

2010 – MA in Comparative Literatures and Post-Colonial Cultures awarded by the University of Bologna, Italy (with distinction)

2008 – BCLT Summer School in literary translation at the University of East Anglia with Susanna Basso and Giles Foden

2007 – BA in Foreign Languages awarded by the University of Bologna, Italy (with distinction)

² Selected Translations

2025 – The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre (UK: Foundry Editions)

2025 – All That is Left of Life by Roberta Recchia (UK: Dialogue Books) 

2024 – Your Little Matter by Maria Grazia Calandrone (UK: Foundry Editions)

³ Prizes

2025 - Shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize

My translation of Your Little Matter by Maria Grazia Calandrone is currently shortlisted for the Society of Authors’ TA First Translation Prize. The winner will be announced in February 2026.

2024 - PEN/Heim Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature

My translation of Your Little Matter by Maria Grazia Calandrone was awarded the 2024 PEN/Heim Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature. An excerpt from the judges’ citation reads: “[Your Little Matter] is a haunting, visceral examination of the failures of Italian society toward young mothers, young families, welfare, and mental health, one which Antonella Lettieri brings into English with the same depths of understanding and compassion that the author shows to her own mother; a translation which is precise, careful, and steeped in the warmth of empathy.”

2023 - First prize in the 2023 John Dryden Translation Competition

My translation of an excerpt from the short story The War of the Murazzi by Enrico Remmert was awarded first prize in the 2023 John Dryden Translation Competition, sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association and the British Centre for Literary Translation.

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