Todd Portnowitz translates from and into Italian. His book publications include Roman Stories (translated with the author, Knopf 2023) In Search of Amrit Kaur by Livia Manera Sambuy (FSG, 2023), The Greatest Invention by Silvia Ferrara (FSG, 2022), Long Live Latin by Nicola Gardini (FSG, 2019), and Go Tell It to the Emperor: The Selected Poems of Pierluigi Cappello (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), for which he received a Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. In 2018 he published Midnight in Spoleto by Paolo Valesio (Fomite) and a translation of Luigi Nono’s opera, Intolleranza, performed by the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Other of his poetry translations include work by Lorenzo Carlucci and Chandra Livia Candiani.
He has published translations of American poets Amy Clampitt, Donald Justice, Debora Greger, and W. S. Merwin in the Italian journal Poesia, and he is a co-founder of the Brooklyn-based reading series for writer-translators, Us&Them, now in its sixth year.
He is the narrator of the audiobooks of The Greatest Invention and Long Live Latin.
Browse a complete list of his books and journal publications.
In 2019, the town of Chiusaforte carved the final five lines of Pierluigi Cappello’s poem “Shadows” into the wall across from the train station, where Cappello’s remains are held.
Awards
2015 - Academy of American Poets
Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship, with an affiliated fellowship at the American Academy in Rome
2015 - Bread Loaf Translator’s Conference
Katherine Bakeless Nason Scholarship