September 3, 2026 Submitted By Gina Gagliano
The Massachusetts Center for the Book has announced the winners of the 2026 Massachusetts Book Awards, celebrating the most outstanding books published in 2025 by Massachusetts authors, artists, and poets, including Hingham resident Aidan Rooney.
“This year’s award winners invite us to grapple with the elusiveness of equality, find hope in the enduring bonds of family, confront the realities of a rapidly changing climate, and consider the vastness of the universe and our place in it. MCB is thrilled to recognize this amazing group of Massachusetts writers, illustrators, translators, poets, and publishers! We feel fortunate to be a part of such a vibrant and fearless literary community,” said Courtney Andree, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Center for the Book.
Rooney received the biannual translated literature prize for Cécé, by Emmelie Prophète. This work is a portrait of a young woman desperate to lay claim to her own experience in Port-au-Prince, and her documentation of her life and her city following the deaths of her mother and grandmother.
“The urge to translate Emmelie Prophète’s sixth novel into English as crisp as the original French was simply irresistible. 95% of our world lives where English is not the first language, and books from those countries make up just 5% of fiction sales in the US, only a third of those by women. This Massachusetts Book Award recognizes that deficit, the need for finer pixelation in our literary makeup, a common wealth of voices alongside whom we walk,” Rooney said.
The Massachusetts Book Awards Ceremony will be held on October 28th, 2026 at the Massachusetts State House. This ceremony marks twenty-six years of the Massachusetts Book Awards.
To read more about Rooney’s book go to https://archipelagobooks.org/book/cece/.