The 2025 Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI) Translated Young Adult Book Prize Committee is pleased to announce the winner and honor books for the 2025 prize. This is the seventh year of the prize and twenty-five books in fourteen languages, published within the past three years, were submitted by publishers.
Winner
The 2025 winner of the GLLI Translated Young Adult Book Prize is:
The Darkness of Colours – by Martín Blasco / Translated from Spanish by Claire Storey (HopeRoad/2024) – ARGENTINA
When a young woman missing since infancy suddenly reappears at her parent’s home, it sets off a chain of events culminating in a string of grisly murders. Set in Buenos Aires at the turn of the 19th century, The Darkness of Colours presents the diary entries of a megalomaniacal doctor, framed around the story of the ambitious young journalist who discovers it.
As Alejandro begins to unravel the mysterious string of deaths plaguing the dark streets of the Argentinian capital with the help of an unhinged hypnotist, we learn more about the young woman and her ‘siblings’ who have likewise reappeared after having been stolen from their cribs decades earlier. Each proves stranger than the last, and none is able to explain where they have been or what happened to them all those years ago.
A twisty thriller steeped in the gothic fantasies and scientific romances of Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H.G. Wells, this engaging and often unsettling book foreshadows the Fascist horrors of WWII, pointing to the dark ends of scientific rationalism and utopian nationalism. At the same time, suggestions of the cryptic auto-fictions of Jorge Luis Borges and the time-traveling flights of fancy of Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy point the reader down a winding path of self-discovery, arriving ultimately in a place more familiar than foreign, reminding us that the crimes of the past never stay buried for long.
Author Martín Blasco (born 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) studied film at university and has worked as a television scriptwriter. He published his first children’s book in 2007 and Worldcat lists seventeen titles in Spanish under his name. To date, The Darkness of Colours (La oscuridad de los colores) is the only book of his that has been translated into English. Three of his titles have been selected for the White Ravens collection (in 2014, 2018, and 2021) of the International Youth Library in Munich, and he won IBBY Chile’s ColibrÍ Medal in 2015 for his YA novel Los extrañamientos.
Translator Claire Storey (born in the UK) translates from German, Spanish, and Catalan, with a particular passion for children’s books. She has a Masters degree in Translation Studies from the University of Bristol and she is proud to be a Chartered Linguist with the UK Chartered Institute of Linguists. In 2021/22, she received funding from Arts Council England for a project focusing on YA Literature from Latin America and this book is one of the results of that initiative. See also these two interviews: one in 2022 in the Words and Pictures, the SCWBI British Isles Online Magazine – and the other in 2023 on the World Kid Lit website, of which she is a member.
Honor Books
Two Honor books have been selected for 2025. The first one is:
The Book of Denial – by Ricardo Chávez Castañeda, illustrated by Alejandro Magallanes / Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel (Unruly/Enchanted Lion/2024) – MEXICO
“This story is the worst story in the world,” the unnamed narrator greets readers. “It’s absolutely terrible.” And it is, capturing a very particular liminal moment when a child’s innocence tips into experience. The narrator’s father is a writer of history books, and his latest is full of horror: a litany of the violence adults have visited upon children across the millennia. Through his narrator’s visceral response to his father’s book, author Ricardo Chávez Castañeda forces YA readers to confront an unbearable truth.
Working in white and gray on black, illustrator Alejandro Magallanes crafts a disorienting visual journey that incorporates startling shifts in typography, unsettling juxtapositions of forms, and canonical imagery—Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents occurs over and over.
Lawrence Schimel translates from the Spanish; his rendering of the original title, El libro de la negación, carries with it for English-speaking readers both the literal sense of negation and the psychological defense mechanism that readers will wish to hide behind with every single turn of the page.
Author Ricardo Chávez Castañeda (born 1961 in Mexico City) is an award-winning author whose work includes novels, short stories, essays, and children’s books. He studied psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and has a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from New Mexico State University. In Worldcat there are sixty-three titles in Spanish listed under his name, but this book is the only one available in English.
Illustrator Alejandro Magallanes (born 1971 in Mexico City) is also a graphic designer, poet, and artist, dedicated to playing and working with letters and images, and his work has won many awards. So far he has written eleven children’s books, four poetry books, two books of essays, one novel, and a number of books for artists. You can see examples of some of his art projects in flashing glory on his website.
Translator Lawrence Schimel (born 1971 in New York City and now living in Madrid) is an author (in Spanish and English) as well as a prolific translator, with over 100 books in a wide range of genres to his name, many of them award-winning. For example, his translation of La Bastarda was an honor book for the 2019 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize, the first year it was awarded. To see all the GLLI blog posts featuring Lawrence Schimel, click here. A full catalog of his work can be found via this PDF link.
The other book selected to be an Honor book for 2025 is:
The Wildcat Behind Glass – by Alki Zei / Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich (Yonder/2024) – GREECE
Set on a Greek island in 1936, as “gloom” (a.k.a. fascism) descends upon Europe, Melia’s life is thrown into disarray and her relationships strained by the differing reactions of her family to the change in regime. The two extremes – her sister Myrto, who is caught up in the excitement of change, and drawn into the phalanx at their new school; and her adored older cousin Nikos, a pro-democracy activist who, as the story goes on, is in more and more danger from the fascist authorities – and the rest of the family at every point in-between.
It takes some time for seven-year-old Melia to truly understand the way her life has changed, but part of the beauty of Zei’s writing is that what is opaque to Melia is crystal clear to the reader, and so there is a sense of inevitability as the book transitions from an idyllic summer to tension that grows and grows and grows (with some moments of startling levity), but is still able to end on a note of hope for the future.
The Wildcat Behind Glass was originally published in 1963, and well deserves its classic status, as it combines a fascinating historical backdrop with complex, compelling characters, and a story that is as relevant today as it has ever been. Note: a reading group discussion guide is available on the publisher’s website.
Author Alki Zei (born 1923 in Athens, died 2020 in Athens) is an icon of Greek children’s literature and Wildcat Under Glass was her first novel. Besides writing, she was also involved in left-wing politics and spent many years in exile, first in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and later in Paris in the 1960s, only returning to Greece in 1974 after the reconstitution of the parliamentary republic. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages around the world and she herself translated books for children from French, Italian and Russian into Greek.
Translator Karen Emmerich is an associate professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a translator of modern Greek poetry and prose. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 2010, after previously earning an MA in Comparative Literature from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In March 2024 LibraryThing interviewed her about why she chose to translate Wildcat Under Glass.
Others on the Shortlist
The shortlist for the 2025 Translated Young Adult Book Prize included these four other titles, listed below in alphabetical order, which we also highly commend.
Fire from the Sky – by Moa Backe Åstot / Translated from Swedish by Eva Apelqvist (Levine Querido/2023) – SÁMI/SWEDEN
In this coming-of-age story, set in the reindeer herding culture of the Sámi in the north of Sweden, 16-year-old Ánte struggles to figure out his sexuality in the context of his culture’s homophobia.
Author Moa Backe Åstot (born 1998 in Sweden) is a Sámi author and reindeer owner. She studied creative writing at Umeå University and Jakobsberg Folk School. Fire From the Sky is her first novel and has won many awards, including an ALA 2024 Printz Honor Book. In March 2024 Kirkus Reviews interviewed her about why she decided to write this YA novel. Her second novel to be published in English – Butterfly Heart – is due out in October 2025.
Translator Eva Apelqvist (born in Sweden, now living in the US) is both an author and translator (Swedish-English and English-Swedish). She first came to the US as a high school exchange student which is when she met her future husband. She now has more than twenty years’ experience translating and writing a wide variety of material, including children’s books. For example, her translation of The Lost Ones, the third volume of the Moonwind Mysteries by Johan Rundberg (the first book in the series was on the 2024 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize shortlist) came out in January 2025, and her own middle-grade novel, Mörker över skateparken, won the prestigious Spårhunden for best mystery for children and young adults in Sweden in 2023. In April 2024 she was interviewed on the World Kid Lit blog about how she came to translate Fire From the Sky.
Our Beautiful Darkness – by Ondjaki, illustrated by António Jorge Gonçalves / Translated from Portuguese by Lyn Miller-Lachmann (Unruly/Enchanted Lion/2024) – ANGOLA
Set against a backdrop of the 1990s civil war in Angola, this illustrated novella conveys an emotionally charged conversation between a teenage boy and girl, exploring the power of first love, and even a first kiss, in the darkness of a blackout.
Author Ondjaki (born 1977 in Luanda, Angola) is the pen name of Ndalu de Almeida. He studied sociology at the University of Luanda and has a doctorate in African Studies. His award-winning works include poetry, children’s books, short stories, novels, drama and film scripts.
Illustrator António Jorge Gonçalves (born 1964 in Portugal) is a comic book author, cartoonist, visual performer, illustrator, set designer and teacher. In 2013, he received the National Illustration Prize in Portugal for this book Uma escuro bonita (Our Beautiful Darkness).
Translator Lyn Miller-Lachmann (born in Texas) translates from both Spanish and Portuguese. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science as well as an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults – and is an award-winning author in her own right. Her translation of Pardalita, was on the 2024 GLLI YA Translated Book Award shortlist and was also a 2024 ALA Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book. In 2020 she was interviewed in the Words and Pictures, the SCWBI British Isles Online Magazine, and in May 2024 she was interviewed on the GLLI blog where she talked about translating Pardalita and Our Beautiful Darkness.
Snowglobe – by Soyoung Park / Translated from Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort (Penguin/2024) – KOREA
This dystopian thriller, where the haves and the have-nots have to compete for resources in a frozen future, has been described as a cross between The Hunger Games and Squid Games. The second book in this duology will be published in English in May 2025, and, not surprisingly, a film is in the making.
Author Soyoung Park (born in Korea) majored in information and communication at university and has worked as a reporter. In an interview with the American Booksellers Association in February 2024, she described her journey to becoming an author: “I started writing novels as a hobby after work, then became a part-time writer, and eventually turned into a full-time writer. I dreamed of becoming a novelist for a long time, and one day I just decided to be one.” Kirkus Review also interviewed her that month. Then in March 2024 the author and translator of Snowglobe were interviewed together in a video by the Korea Society in the US to celebrate the publication of the English edition.
Translator Joungmin Lee Comfort (born in Korea) moved to the US in her 20s to study hotel and tourism management after getting a bachelor’s degree in economics in Korea, but then in 2016, she received a translation grant from the Literary Translation Institute of Korea, which began her career in literary translation. In 2017, she was awarded the American Literary Translators Association Emerging Translator Mentorship program. She translates books for all ages, from children’s picture books to adult fiction.
The Wild Ones – by Antonio Ramos Revillas / Translated from Spanish by Claire Storey (HopeRoad/2024) – MEXICO
A lyrical coming-of-age novel about the struggles of Efraín, a 15-year-old boy in Monterrey in northern Mexico, trying to keep his family together while fighting against poverty amidst societal prejudice and lawless gangs.
Author Antonio Ramos Revillas (born in Mexico) is an award-winning author of books for young people and adults. In 2015 he was selected to participate in the Mexico 20 project by the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in the UK, which paired 20 Mexican writers under the age of 40 with British translators, resulting in an anthology published by the Pushkin Press. In 2021 Salvajes (The Wild Ones) was chosen for the White Ravens collection of the International Youth Library in Munich.
Translator: This second book on the 2025 shortlist translated by Claire Storey (see the winning book above, The Darkness of Colours) is another result of her successful project with Arts Council England focused on getting YA literature from Latin America translated into English. In October 2024 she was interviewed on the World Kid Lit blog about why she chose to translate this particular title and what some of the challenges were.
The prize winners were announced in-person and virtually on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, as part of a celebration of International Children’s Day at Rutgers University’s Alexander Library, which houses the International Youth Literature Collection (IYLC) and hosts the IYLC Research (Lib)Guide.
Note: The International Youth Literature Collection is a repository for all of the physical copies of the GLLI submissions each year.
Many thanks to the 2025 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Committee members listed below for all the reading and thoughtful discussions over the past few months. We are lucky to have such a range of professions in the group, including translators, book reviewers, public librarians, and teacher-librarians, as well as extensive experience with book awards.
- Katie Day (Chair)
- Angela Erickson
- Terry Hong
- Anthony Tilke
- Vicky Smith
- Frances Sims-Williams
- Nick Stember
Assisted by Becky Blackburn, GLLI Adjunct Committee Member
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 
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