About
Originally from Chicago, Leah has lived in Milan since 1991. For over 25 years she’s been an Italian-to-English translator of fiction for all ages. Her recent translations include Glowrushes (Lo stralisco) by Roberto Piumini, nominee for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award; At the Wolf's Table / The Women at Hitler's Table (Le assaggiatrici, 2018 Campiello Prize) by Rosella Postorino; and Lost on Me (Niente di Vero, finalist for the 2022 Strega Prize) by Veronica Raimo. Lost on Me has been longlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize. As a lyricist registered with SIAE, Leah also writes English song lyrics for Italian rock bands.
For the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, she is Guest Curator of Italian Lit Month, held in October 2024 to coincide with the Frankfurt book fair, at which Italy is country of honor.
Leah Janeczko uses her creativity, passion and expert knowledge of Italian and English to help others express their authentic voice in a language not their own.
Featured Work
Glowrushes by Roberto Piumini
Glowrushes (Lo stralisco) is the masterpiece of Italy's foremost living author of children's stories, Roberto Piumini, who received a Rodari Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 and is currently a nominee, for the third time, for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
This classic of Italian children's literature tells the heartbreakingly beautiful story of a Turkish artist who paints colorful landscapes for a boy confined by sickness to his windowless bedchambers.
Written in 1987, the book was published in its very first English translation by Pushkin Children's Books in 2022 and in the US and Canada by New York Review Books in 2023.
- The New York Times: Best Children’s Books of 2023
- The Times: Children’s Book of the Week
- Five Books: Best Kids’ Books of 2022
- Kirkus: starred review
- Words Without Borders: World Kid Lit’s Best of 2022
- BookTrust President Michael Morpurgo: Favorite children’s book of the year
REVIEWS
The New York Times: "Enchanting ... A masterpiece"
Kirkus Reviews: "Utterly spellbinding ... An elegy, timeless and entrancing."
Philip Pullman: "I don't think I have read anything like this before -- a tale of life, death, love and beauty that by the storyteller's art makes those things true, fresh, real and important. I hope this unforgettable story finds all the readers it deserves."
Michael Morpurgo: “You see it, feel it, live it as you read. Lyrical, magical, tender and true, and deeply mysterious.”
Emily Drabble of BookTrust: “I cry, honestly, if I even think of this book. It’s truly a masterpiece and everyone has to read it. I’m just utterly gripped by the sparkling perfection of it.”
World Kid Lit: “This modern Italian classic, written as a traditional fable in poetic prose, will transport readers, young and old alike, into an enchanting, magical bygone realm.”
The Guardian: “Elegant, moving … filled with understatedly exquisite, transporting prose.”
The Times: “Beautiful … a touching, otherworldly, out-of-time novella about friendship, imagination and the power of art.”
Other Works
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Lost on Me (Niente di Vero) by Veronica Raimo, published by Grove Atlantic and Virago Books (Longlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize)
2023
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Wrote lyrics to eight songs for dark wave band The Elephant Man's debut album, Sinners, produced by Steve Lyon and in the running in 2023 for a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album
2023
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Visconti: Cinema, Theatre, Opera, and ten other monographs on La Scala's set and costume designers by Vittoria Crespi Morbio, President of the Amici della Scala association
2020-2024
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Is There Something in the Air? (Che cos'e' che in aria vola?), a poem for children explaining the coronavirus, by Roberto Piumini, published online by the Bologna Children's Book Fair
2020
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At the Wolf's Table / The Women at Hitler's Table (Le assaggiatrici) by Rosella Postorino: Flatiron Books, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster (shortlisted for the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award)
2019
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Wrote lyrics to seven songs for prog rock band Siveral's debut album, The Future Is Analog (prod. Max Zanotti), and six singles
2019
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Five YA novels by Elisa S. Amore: Touched; Unfaithful; Brokenhearted; Dark Tournament; and Expiation
2016-2017
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The “Century” YA novels by P.D. Baccalario: Ring of Fire; Star of Stone; City of Wind; and Dragon of Seas
2009-2012
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For two decades (until 2013), worked closely with Disney Italy, as of 2000 home to Disney Global Magazines: translation of comics, books, magazines, publishing concepts, and more
1994-2013
Awards and Recognition
- Shortlisted for the Italian Prose in Translation Award 2020 for At the Wolf's Table by Rosella Postorino
- One of the 15 literary translators from Italian invited, as a guest of the Italian Trade Agency and the Turin International Book Fair, to the Dall'Italiano al Mondo conference held at the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair, at which Italy was guest of honor.
- Longlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize, alongside author Veronica Raimo, for her novel in my translation, Lost on Me (Niente di Vero).
Press and Media Mentions
- THE ITALIANIST: Riveting Italian Books You Need to Know About with Leah Janeczko: "Italian Lit Month – Treat Your Bookshelf to a Taste of Italy!"
- Introduction to Italian Lit Month by GLLI guest curator Leah Janeczko: "Italian Lit Month: A Chorus of Voices"
- Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo: 2024 International Booker Prize longlist announcement
- On the podcast Harshaneeyam, I talk about my journey into translations, my translation of Rosella Postorino's novel The Women at Hitler's Table, and my love for translating fiction (33 minutes)
- "A Masterpiece About a Masterpiece, for All Ages" (Joseph Luzzi, The New York Times, on GLOWRUSHES)
- “I cry, honestly, if I even think of this book. It’s truly a masterpiece and everyone has to read it. I’m just utterly gripped by the sparkling perfection of it.” (Emily Drabble of BookTrust on GLOWRUSHES, The Island of Brilliant podcast, 2023)
- "Utterly spellbinding ... An elegy, timeless and entrancing" (Starred Kirkus review on GLOWRUSHES, 2023)
- “Beautiful … a touching, otherworldly, out-of-time novella about friendship, imagination and the power of art.” (GLOWRUSHES is Children's Book of the Week in The Times, 2022)
- GLOWRUSHES included on World Kid Lit's list of the best international children's books (Words Without Borders, 2022)
- Leah reads an excerpt of GLOWRUSHES by Roberto Piumini for the Translators Aloud channel, 2022
- "A winning work of autofiction… Tough to put down.” (Publishers Weekly on LOST ON ME, 2023)
- "A challenge to its translator but one risen to here with remarkable aplomb. Leah Janeczko has given English readers the opportunity to immerse themselves in a work by a writer who deserves as wide an audience as possible. There could not be a finer justification for Women in Translation Month than this." (Charlie Connelly from The New European on LOST ON ME, 2023)
- Leah reads an excerpt of LOST ON ME by Veronica Raimo for the Translators Aloud channel, 2023
- "Extraordinary" (THE WOMEN AT HITLER'S TABLE [aka AT THE WOLF'S TABLE], the best new historical fiction in The Sunday Times, 2019)
- "Unputdownable ... Expertly translated from the Italian" (The Herald Scotland on THE WOMEN AT HITLER'S TABLE, 2019)
- "Written with intelligence and nuance" (The Times on THE WOMEN AT HITLER'S TABLE, 2019)
- AT THE WOLF'S TABLE shortlisted for the Italian Prose in Translation Award, 2020
- Leah reads "Is There Something in the Air?" by Roberto Piumini for the Translators Aloud channel, 2020
- "Roberto Piumini’s Italian Treasure Trove of Tales" by Leah Janeczko, an article written for World Kid Lit, 2022
