Bio

Julia Sanches is a literary translator from Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. Recent translations include Living Things by Munir Hachemi and Mammoth by Eva Baltasar, both finalists of the Cercador Prize; Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (co-translated with Heather Cleary); and The Time of Cherries by the late Catalan author Montserrat Roig. Her work has been supported by multiple grants and residencies, including ArtOmi, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the PEN Heim, and she has been longlisted and shortlisted for several prizes, among them the International Booker, the National Translation Award, and the PEN Translation Award, which she won in 2022 for Mariana Oliver’s Migratory Birds. Julia served as a judge of the 2024 National Book Award in the category of Translated Literature. Born in Brazil, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Project Description

To support the translation of the novel It Is Always the Hour of Our Death Amen by Mariana Salomão Carrara from Brazilian Portuguese. Salomão Carrara (1986) is a public defender from São Paulo, Brazil, and the author of award-winning novels and short story collections. It Is Always the Hour of Our Death Amen is the second volume in a trio of works and was written during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The book follows a woman in her 70s, who may or may not be named Aurora, found wandering barefoot on the roadside, clutching a dog collar, and calling out for someone named Camila. Having lost her memory, Aurora is taken to a shelter for older adults and tended to by an overburdened social worker. Told in short chapters, each relating to an ordinary day in Aurora’s life at the shelter, the novel explores themes of memory, friendship, and death in formally inventive, acrobatic prose.