Laurence Laluyaux to receive 2026 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature
Laurence Laluyaux, head of RCW International and an agent for internationally renowned authors including three Nobel laureates, will receive the 2026 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature, Words Without Borders announced today. The award will be presented at a ceremony on Tuesday, June 30, in New York City. MacArthur Fellow and Words Without Borders contributor Valeria Luiselli will deliver the encomium. A recording of the event will be made available on the Words Without Borders website.
“What a boon Laurence Laluyaux has been for anglophone readers!” said WWB’s board chair, Samantha Schnee. “Without her discerning eye and deep faith in literature that pushes boundaries, we might never have discovered the work of Naja Marie Aidt (Denmark), Rodrigo Hasbún (Bolivia), and Semezdin Mehmedinović (Bosnia). It is Words Without Borders’ great pleasure to recognize Laurence’s steadfast championing of these and so many other writers of world literature with this year’s Ottaway Award.”
László Krasznahorkai, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, says of Laluyaux, “The fact is that Laurence Laluyaux is an angel. And literature has an inexpressible need for angels. […] The Ottaway Award could not find a more deserving recipient.”
Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, shares that Laluyaux “not only represents writers professionally, but also creates a true sense of family around them—a warm, supportive atmosphere in which authors feel seen, valued, and understood. Under Laurence’s watchful eye, writers know they are never alone, and that makes all the difference.”
Upon learning of her award, Laluyaux said, “Words Without Borders has been a treasure chest to me for many years now. Having grown up in a country where one had access to many literatures from around the world without ever stopping to consider what a marvel that was, I found in WWB a sort of home away from home. I have long admired its passion, expertise, and inventiveness. It is a great honor to receive the 2026 Ottaway Award, and I would like to thank the selection committee as well as the extraordinary writers and the translators who make it possible for me to indulge in what I love the most on a daily basis.”
The Ottaway Award recognizes Laluyaux’s extraordinary work as an advocate for international literature who has nurtured award-winning global literary sensations for over thirty years. She taught French in the US and worked briefly as an interpreter and a bookseller before joining RCW Literary Agency in 1996. Her interest in non-anglophone authors began during her tenure running RCW’s foreign rights department. Representing English-language authors had given the agency access to international publishers, and she turned the tables by introducing non-anglophone writers to the global literary conversation. Through an early association with Luiz Schwarcz at Companhia das Letras in Brazil, Laluyaux began signing authors such as Valeria Luiselli early in their careers. She then worked closely with Peter Straus to develop the bones of RCW International, which became a division of RCW in 2023. She is involved with literary festivals and organizations like PEN UK, most recently sitting on the Selection Panel for the 2026 PEN Presents program.
Laluyaux represents writers including Han Kang, László Krasznahorkai, and Olga Tokarczuk, as well as Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, Chris Kraus, Valeria Luiselli, Olga Ravn, Keith Ridgway, Sara Stridsberg, and Alia Trabucco Zerán. Her authors have won or been nominated for the Nobel Prize, the Booker Prize, the International Booker Prize, the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the Folio Rathbone Prize, the Goldsmith Prize, the Dublin Literary Award Prize, and the James Tait Black Prize, as well as prestigious international prizes such as the Prix Femina, Prix Femina étranger, Prix Medicis, Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman (France), the Kossuth Prize (Hungary), the Nike Award (Poland), the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize (Sweden), the Prix Formentor (Spain), the Buchpreis (Germany), the Jabuti Prize (Brazil), the Politikens Literature Prize (Denmark), and the Optimist Award (Iceland).
Named in honor of the first board chair of Words Without Borders, Jim Ottaway, Jr., the Ottaway Award recognizes an individual whose work and activism have advanced WWB’s mission of promoting cultural understanding through the publication and promotion of international literature. Past awardees include Christopher Merrill, Marcia Lynx Qualey, Daniel Hahn, Naveen Kishore, the late Edith Grossman, Chad W. Post, Jill Schoolman, Barbara Epler, Sara Bershtel, the late Carol Brown Janeway, and Drenka Willen.