by Paola Agosti
The Premio Agosti is an annual prize for Best Translation which Paola Agosti and her brother Aldo have named after their mother, Nini Castellani Agosti: firstly, because she was an acclaimed and prolific translator, and secondly because theirs can actually be defined as a family of translators. Their grandmother, Cristina Garosci, translated from Polish; Nini’s brother, Emilio Castellani, is famous as the Italian translator of Bertolt Brecht; her sister, Enrica, translated children’s books, as did her husband, Giuseppe Ciocia. Giorgio Agosti, Paola and Aldo’s father, is renowned for his active role in the Italian Resistance in WWII and for being appointed as Head of the Police Force in Turin by the Committee of National Liberation at the end of the war. But he too did his share of translation and, when requested by Cesare Pavese, translated a number of nonfiction books.