The reading committee of the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Translation Prize announced that translator Edith Grossman has won the first $10,000 award for her translation of Antonio Munoz Molinas novel, “A Manuscript of Ashes.”

The newly-established triennial prize has “the aim of elevating awareness and engendering appreciation of Spanish literature in the United States… [created] to honor the best English-language translation of a work of fiction written in Castilian by a Spanish author and published by an American imprint. The inaugural award celebrates the best translation published between 2006 and 2008, with subsequent awards anticipated in 2012 and 2015.”

The award will be handed out in a ceremony at Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York City on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. The award ceremony will be presided by Oscar de la Renta–the chairman of the Institute’s Board of Directors. Both Grossman and Molina will attend, engaging in a “dialogue on the art of writing and
translating.”