David Broder Wins the 2025 Albertine Translation Prize

Each year, the Albertine Translation Prize honors translators and American publishers of English translations of contemporary French works.

Supporting the dissemination of French and Francophone literature in the United States, the Albertine Translation Fund provides support to cover publishing and translation costs to U.S. publishers of works translated from French to English in fiction, non-fiction, children’s literature, and comics.

In 2025, the Albertine Translation committee selected 17 works, forming a diverse collection that reflects a vibrant vision of contemporary literature. See the full list of Fund grantees here.

Each year, the Albertine Translation Committee also chooses, among the recipients, one book to be awarded the Albertine Translation Prize. The winning book receives $5,000, to be allocated to the translator. 

During a ceremony held at Villa Albertine’s New York headquarters on February 12, 2026, David Broder was awarded this prestigious honor for his translation of Malika Rahal’s Algerie 1962. Une Histoire populaire (La Decouverte, 2022 / Verso Books, forthcoming)

The ceremony also marked Villa Albertine’s partnership with the Colloquy Series at World Poetry Books, which brought translators and readers together for an evening of translation jousts. During the event, award-winning translators Emma Ramadan and Marcella Durand engaged in a lively discussion of their distinct renderings of the same French texts, moderated by translator and author Mark Polizzotti.

Learn more about the award-winning translator and work below.

About the Winner

David Broder is a Rome-based writer, translator, and historian. He earned his PhD in International History from the London School of Economics and specializes in modern European history. He is a contributing editor for Jacobin magazine and regularly writes on Italian politics for publications including Internazionale.

About the Book

In Algeria, the year 1962 marked both the end of a war and a difficult transition to peace. Bringing to a close a long era of French colonization marked by violence and alienation, it also saw the emergence of an Algerian state primarily concerned with ensuring its own stability and the survival of its population. While in many formerly colonized countries, 1962 has come to symbolize the year of independence for their peoples, in France it is known above all through the experiences of the pieds-noirs and the Harkis. In Algeria, historiography of the year 1962 has largely been reduced to the political crisis within the FLN (National Liberation Front), which was torn by internal conflicts, while little is known about the experiences of ordinary Algerians who remained in the country at the time. 

This book makes an unprecedented and essential contribution to the history of Algeria and its independence, drawing on popular sources and personal accounts to offer a complex and vivid portrait of life in the country at the time. 

About the Author

Malika Rahal is a historian specializing in contemporary Algerian history. She is the director of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent in Paris. With Fabrice Riceputi, she launched a research project entitled “Mille autres”, on forced disappearance during the battle of Algiers.