Welsh translator wins award to translate works from Portuguese

Emyr Humphreys, a multi-lingual translator who works in Welsh and English has received his first award from Pen England and the FundaÇÃo Bibiloteca Nacional of Brazil.

The Pen Translates award is for the Portuguese work of leading Brazilian writer Nara Vidal. Vidal’s stories, Mapas para desaparecer will be published as Maps to Nowhere by Parthian in the Spring of 2027.

Nara Vidal will travel to Wales, supported by the Brazilian Government to discuss her work with events planned across the UK.

Emyr said: “ I am over the moon at winning a PEN Translates award and being able to bring Nara’s stories to a new audience. It will be the latest in a nearly decade-long creative partnership between us.”

Emyr travelled to Brazil for the first time fifteen years ago to live in Porto Alegre, on the Rio Grande in the south of the country.

“During my time living Brazil I made friends with writers, musicians and artists who all had a seismic impact on my creative life. I also learned Portuguese which I still regard as the most beautiful sounding language in the world. Despite living in rural Wales, I still use it every day, either by reading, listening to music or chatting with friends.

Emyr recently translated the Welsh 60s sci-fi classic Y Dydd Olaf by Owain Owain as The Last Day, which was published in 2024.

Maps to Nowhere was published in Brazil to great acclaim, winning the 2021 Luiz Gondim Book of the Year Prize. It was also shortlisted for the prestigious Jabuti Prize the same year. Focusing on women’s experiences in Brazil, the stories tackle a number of timely issues including gender discrimination and femicide, disappearance, class inequality, and race relations, revealing the prejudice and danger beneath the veneer of modern society across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Nara Vidal said: “My writing comes from observing what could be hidden in human relations… what lies beneath a facade, a performance. I think there’s beauty in exposing the complexities and contradictions in the human nature… I keep a close eye on the dynamics of marriage, motherhood, friendship and all of these wonderfully complicated ways of interaction.”

The UK publication will constitute a unique addition to the vibrant market of Latin American literature in translation, introducing an exceptionally powerful voice to the coterie of Brazilian authors published in English.

Hailing from Minas Gerais, a inland state of south-east Brazil, Vidal brings a regional and international perspective to her work, which will allow readers to move beyond the pervasive Rio and São Paolo-centric vision of the country and its literature.

Vidal artfully dovetails stories about well-travelled diplomats and elites with tales of characters ensnared in the harsh realities of Brazil’s urban underclass, the collection offers a biting reflection of who is likely to shape international perceptions of the country, and whose voices are likely to be omitted.

New Welsh Review

Humphreys has already published some of Vidal’s stories as part of his translator’s journey into the language and culture of Brazil with stories published in in the White Review, Latin American Literature Today, and the New Welsh Review.

Emyr Humphreys was selected for Ulysses’ Shelter, a literary exchange where he worked on his next novel-length translation in Belgrade.

He divides his time between rural Powys and Aberystwyth, where he also works as a Welsh translator for Coleg Gwent and a volunteer Welsh translator for Mid & North Powys Mind.

He will be talking about his work as a multi-lingual translator with Imogen Davies at the National Eisteddfod in Aberteifi this Summer.