The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will award a $12,500 literary translation fellowship to Russell Valentino, professor and chair of the Cinema and Comparative Literature department in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the new editor of the Iowa Review.

Valentino is one of only 16 scholars in the world to receive this honor for fiscal year 2010. The NEA grants support the translation of a diverse range of texts, including fiction, poetry, memoir, drama and philosophy.

Valentino will translate a collection of 44 poems, "Conversations with Filip the Seagull in this Corner of Paradise," by Ligio Zanini. Zanini (1927-93) was born in the small fishing village of Rovigno (then part of Italy) on the Adriatic coast. He wrote in Rovignese, a dialect spoken by only about 600 people. Valentino's translation will be the first of Zanini's work to appear in English.