Readers of this blog will know that I indulge in the odd scribble, so my ears pricked up today when I welcomed the new Head of our Portugese translation unit, Sonia Rocha, to the Committee for she told me with great pride about a young novelist in her unit who is already enjoying considerable success in Portugal. Her name is Ana Ferreira Pessoa and she won the national prize Branquinho da Fonseca in the young-adult fiction category (awarded in Portugal by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the national weekly newspaper Expresso). Her novel, in journal genre, is called ‘The red book of the karate girl’, and it’s going to be translated into English and probably other languages as well. As you will see from this link, she was in the national news (and was also interviewed by literary and business publications both print and online). As the Americans would say, ‘way to go!’ Well done, Ana.