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In the space of a single week, Croatian writer Želimir Periš has collected two French literary honours for his novel Mladenka kostonoga (La Sorcière à la jambe d'os), brought into French by Chloé Billon and published by Les Éditions du Sonneur. The recognition arrives from a country where speculative and fantastic literature enjoys a particularly attentive readership.

The first award was announced at Les Imaginales in Épinal, a festival that has hosted France's foremost prize devoted to imaginative fiction since 2002. There, Mladenka kostonoga was named best translated foreign novel – a category that places Periš among the most celebrated international voices to reach French readers this year.

Days later, a second honour followed from Lyon, where the 14th edition of the science-fiction and speculative-fiction festival Les Intergalactiques awarded the Intergalactiques SFFF Translation Prize to Chloé Billon for her rendering of the novel. In its citation, the jury singled out the unforgettable figure of the witch Gila and the novel's vivid picaresque energy, which leads the reader through the landscapes of Balkan history and mythology. The work, the jurors wrote, is a postmodern fresco that moves freely between genres and styles while drawing deeply on oral tradition and folklore – a text whose richness demanded both exceptional skill and singular devotion from its translator.

Periš has spoken before of the novel's unexpected resonance with French audiences, attributing much of its journey to his translator's commitment to the book. Because the work travels through the French language, he has noted, responses have reached him from Canada and beyond – proof, in his view, that certain themes are universal, and that readers everywhere recognise their own outlaws and witches under different names.

Together, the two prizes mark a significant new chapter in the international life of Mladenka kostonoga, a novel that continues to win readers well beyond Croatia's borders.