The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the winners of its first annual International Literature Awards. Designed to “provide American readers with greater access to quality foreign literary work in translation,” the prizes, each worth $10,000, will go to three independent literary presses: Brooklyn-based Archipelago Books Inc.; Dalkey Archive, in Champaign, Ill.; and Etruscan Press, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Each press will translate and publish a work from Greece or Spain, the two countries that are the focus of the 2007 competition. The Greek and Spanish governments will match the arts endowment’s awards.

“Translation provides Americans with as direct a connection as possible to both the individual voice of the author and the heart of a culture,” the endowment’s chairman, Dana Gioia, said. “The National Endowment for the Arts is delighted to work with Greece and Spain to connect our people through the power of literature.”