Posts filed under 'grants'

November 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

November 10, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

Mentorships, grants, and more—check out this month's latest translation opportunities!

EDUCATION

QUEENS COLLEGE MFA PROGRAM IN CREATIVE WRITING AND LITERARY TRANSLATIONCUNY

The Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation invites you to a Virtual Open House on November 20. 

Located in the most culturally and linguistically diverse county in the nation, our sponsor, the Queens College MFA program, attracts students dedicated to crossing boundaries in genre, craft, and language. Classes are small, mostly in the evening, and students work closely with faculty mentors. Gain a liberal arts experience with affordable public university tuition in an urban environment with a verdant 80-acre campus.

The program offers tracks in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and literary translation–and students are encouraged to experiment with multiple genres. See how far you can take your writing. Register for the open house here. 

 

ALTA EMERGING TRANSLATOR MENTORSHIPS

The American Literary Translators Association’s annual mentorship program is still open to applicants, but the window is closing soon!

Founded in 2015, ALTA’s mentorship program serves to connect emerging and established translators through collaboration on a translation project of the mentee’s choosing. This undertaking will culminate in a reading of the work at ALTA’s annual fall conference in 2025. In its nearly ten years of existence, the program has supported over 70 translators working from 25 different languages.

The program is available to translators who have published no more than one full-length literary translation. Applicants should submit their CV, a 1000-word project proposal, and an 8-10 page sample translation to be considered. The application window closes on November 30th. Find more information here.

SUBMISSIONS

TWO LINES PRESS – CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Two Lines Press’s Calico series is calling for submissions! The series’ upcoming edition will feature poetry written and translated by Afghan women. Poets living in Afghanistan and the diaspora are invited to submit 8 to 15 pages of previously untranslated poetry, translated from any language, to be considered. They especially hope to receive works “that will inspire, challenge, and expand our conception of poetry from that region of the world.”

The deadline for submissions November 18th. You can find more information here.

READ MORE…

September 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

September 28, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

From mentorships to new submission opportunities, check out this fall's latest opportunities in translation!

SUBMISSIONS

TWO LINES PRESS

Spooky season is nearly upon us, and Two Lines Press is getting into the spirit.

For their upcoming Calico, Two Lines is calling on translators to answer the question: “What is a ghost and what does it show about the place or culture it inhabits?” Ghost stories exist in every culture, and are steeped, often inseparably, in a combination of a place’s history, politics, religion, and folklore. Translators are encouraged to “shake the dust” from this genre and explore what makes a modern-day ghost story.

Short stories between 2,000 and 10,000 words will be considered. Submissions are open until November 18th. You can find additional information on how to submit here.

 

EDUCATION

ALTA EMERGING TRANSLATOR MENTORSHIPS

The American Literary Translators Association’s annual mentorship program is now open for applications!

Founded in 2015, ALTA’s mentorship program aims to establish a rapport between emerging and established translators. The mentor and mentee will work for one year together on a translation project of the mentee’s choosing, culminating in a reading of the work at ALTA’s annual fall conference. In its nearly ten years of existence, the program has supported over 70 translators working from 25 different languages.

The program is available to emerging translators—those who have published no more than one full-length literary translation. Applicants should submit their CV, a project proposal, and an 8-10 page sample translation. Applications are open from now to November 30th. Find more information here.

READ MORE…

June 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

June 23, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

We've collected some of this summer's latest opportunities in translation—from submission opportunities to workshops, check out our list!

SUBMISSIONS

ALCHEMY

Alchemy is currently open to submissions for their Summer 2024 issue! Centered around the theme ‘Speculative Worlds’, this issue is seeking works of translation that “rethink what our everyday lives could look like, hope towards new forms of liberation and survival, and look to new languages, codes, images, objects, patterns, and ways of being.”

Student translators, emerging translators, and professional translators who have not yet published a full-length book are encouraged to submit their works of poetry, prose, non-fiction, and visual art. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2024. You can find additional information here.

Alchemy is a translation journal based out of the University of California, San Diego that seeks to promote up-and-coming translators and their works.

TWO LINES PRESS

The award-winning Two Lines Press is currently accepting submissions for translations of novels, story collections, and literary non-fiction by African authors. Translations from any non-English languages will be accepted, but works from African languages and/or underrepresented communities are especially encouraged.

Two Lines Press is committed to publishing original works from a vast range of creatives, especially those who have not often been given the space to share their work in the English-centric publishing industry.

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, June 30. Find more information on how to submit here. READ MORE…

May 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

May 12, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

From poetry readings to translation workshops—check out our compilation of some of this summer's latest opportunities in world literature.

SUBMISSIONS

THE VIEW FROM GAZA

The Massachusetts Review is calling for submissions for a special issue, The View From Gaza. Palestinian writers are encouraged to send their work—whether it be poetry, prose, essays, or art—for this special issue, which will commemorate those who have been lost in the genocide and celebrate the ongoing resistance and resilience in Gaza.

As Israel’s violence against Gaza continues, the Review “hope[s] to amplify the work of Palestinian writers that contributes to the theory and critique of Empire and settler colonialism.” Submissions in English, Arabic, and other languages are all eligible.

The deadline for submissions is June 15th. Submissions should be sent to themassreview@gmail.com.

EVENTS

2024 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE READINGS

On June 5th, 2024, the Griffin Poetry Prize invites you to join them for an evening of poetry and translation!

Awarded annually, the Griffin Poetry Prize is the world’s largest international prize for a book of poetry written (or translated into) English. At this celebratory event, this year’s shortlisted poets will read from their works at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto before this year’s winner is revealed. Readings will also be performed by the Lifetime Recognition Award recipient and the 2024 Canadian First Book Prize winner.

Tune in to the the Griffin Poetry Prize’s Youtube channel to watch a livestream of the readings on June 5th at 7pm ET.

GRANTS & FUNDING

GLOBAL AFRICA TRANSLATION FELLOWSHIP

The Africa Institute is welcoming applications for their fourth annual Global Africa Translation Fellowship!

This fellowship aims to celebrate works from the African continent, as well as from the African diaspora. Translators from across the Global South can submit their works-in-progress or potential projects to be considered for a grant of up to $5,000. Translations of previously untranslated poetry, prose, and critical theory works, as well as retranslations of older texts, are eligible. Submissions should be translated into English or Arabic, although translations into some other languages may also be considered.

The deadline for applications is June 1st, 2024. Find more information on eligibility and how to apply here.

RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS

BCLT ADVANCED TRANSLATION WORKSHOPS

Since 2021, the British Centre for Literary Translation has run annual advanced translation workshops to support the craft of literary translators and to bring together those with common language pairs. This year’s workshop will center on translators of Taiwanese literature.

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to work with other attendees to hone a sample translation for their chosen project. By the end of the program, participants will have a polished sample, as well as a pitch, that is ready to send off to potential publishers. Accepted applicants will need to choose a book from the Taiwan Literature Awards for Books longlists and obtain permission to translate the work.

The deadline for applications is June 2nd, 2024, while the event itself will run online during the 7th, 22nd, and 23rd of November. Read more here.

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Our mission here at Asymptote is to elevate the incredible work that translators do to to share literature from around the world. Our “Upcoming Opportunities” initiative aims to provide those translators with the opportunity to improve their craft and share the projects they’ve put their hearts into. Have an opportunity that you’d like us to share in this monthly column? Check out our rates here, then drop us a line.

We’re working hard on our upcoming 52nd issue. If you’ve enjoyed the work we do—from our social media channels and blog to our newsletters and, of course, our quarterly issues—please consider supporting us as we continue to celebrate world literature and those that bring it to life. Any and all donations to support us on our mission are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Read more on the Asymptote blog:

April 2024: Upcoming Opportunities in Translation

April 13, 2024  |  in News  |  by Kathryn Raver

From education to grants, Spring brings new opportunities for writers and translators! We distill some of the very best below.

CONTESTS

IMAGINE 2200

Grist is excited to open submissions for the fourth year of their Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors Short Story Contest.

Imagine 2200 is an invitation to writers from all over the globe to imagine a future in which solutions to the climate crisis flourish and help bring about radical improvements to our world.

In 2,500 to 5,000 words, show us the world you dream of building.

Your story should be set sometime between the near future and roughly the year 2200.

There is no cost to enter. The winning writer will be awarded $3,000, with the second- and third-place winners receiving $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. An additional nine finalists will each receive $300. All winners and finalists will have their story published in an immersive collection on Grist’s website. Stories will be judged by authors Omar El Akkad and Annalee Newitz.

The deadline for submissions is June 24th, 2024, 11:59 PT. Learn more and submit your story here.

 GRANTS & FUNDING

PEN TRANSLATES

English PEN’s biannual PEN Translates grant is now open for applications! This grant, which is open to UK publishers, was launched in 2012 as an incentive to publishers to pick up books in languages other than English. Since its conception, the grant has funded over 350 works of literature translated from over 90 different languages.

The grant funds up to 75% of translation costs for selected projects. Works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, and plays, translated from any language into English, will be considered.

Starting this year, English PEN is also offering a second award in partnership with South Asian Literature in Translation. PEN Translates x SALT is open to publishers anywhere in the world that are looking to publish works of South Asian literature. Submissions must have been originally published in any of the official or unofficial languages of South Asia by an author that is a citizen or resident of a South Asian country, or who is of South Asian heritage.

Applications for both grants are due on the 31st of May. Apply here.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

November 18, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Charlie Ng, Cristina Pérez Díaz, and Julia Sherwood

The latest in literature from Poland, Hong Kong, and Puerto Rico!

This week on Asymptote, we’re your eyes and ears for updates on award seasons, special national literature features, and postcolonial discourse and strategy. Polish literature is soaring at a high after celebrated adaptations and translations are introducing new readers to long-loved works. From Hong Kong, the national security law once again catalyses questions in its suppression of writing, even as local writers are seeing much love abroad. in Puerto Rico, writers are questioning US-backed funding and its entrapments. Read on to find out more.

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Poland

Autumn is Poland’s award season, and this year saw the prizes go to a variety of genres. For the first time since 2009, NIKE, Poland’s most prestigious literary prize, went to a book of poetry: Jerzy Jarniewicz’s “erotically daring” collection Mondo Cane. Edward Pasewicz, whose novel Pulverkopf was also shortlisted, took home the coveted Angelus Prize for literature from Central Europe—only the second Polish book to win the accolade in the award’s twelve-year history. The Readers’ Angelus Prize went to Czech writer Jaroslav Rudiš for his novel Winterbergs letzte Reise, written in German and translated into Polish by Małgorzata Gralińska, and his publisher Książkowe klimaty scored another success with Bartosz Sadulski’s “literary fable and anti-historical reportage” Rzeszot, garnering the Kościelskich Prize.

Polish literature has enjoyed something of a boom in English, placing second in a recent survey conducted by The Bookseller, which is based on Nielsen BookScan data for the fifty-two weeks since April 16, 2022. The results show that in this period, translated fiction accounted for 11.4% of total fiction revenue, proving that we have moved even further from the proverbial 3%. Broken down into languages, 60% of the translations were from Japanese—unsurprising given that 99.7% of the total revenue was generated by manga. The next language, French, trailed at 6.1%, and Polish came in at third with 4.6%, beating translations from Italian, German, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, and Norwegian. Much of this success appears to be linked to Andrzej Sapkowski’s blockbuster fantasy The Witcher, which has filled the Game of Thrones-shaped hole on Netflix; the first two volumes of the eight-part saga were translated by Danusia Stok and the remainder by David French, who went on to translate his Hussite Trilogy. Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel Prize has also contributed to this success, as has the fact that Polish literature was the market focus at the 2017 London Book Fair.

Here’s hoping that this interest will extend to a slew of recent translations from the Polish. According to Her, “a book-length interview with the Mother of God” by Maciej Hen (recently interviewed on the Asymptote blog by fellow writer Wioletta Greg), was published by Holland House in Anna Blasiak’s translation on November 3. On the same day, Penguin Books released Anna Zaranko’s long-awaited translation of The Peasants, one of Poland’s most famous twentieth-century epics by the 1924 Nobel Prize winner Władysław Reymont. In What We Leave Behind: A Birdwatcher’s Dispatches from the Waste Catastrophe, translated by Zosia Krasodomska-Jones and published by MacLehose Press on October 13, ornithologist and writer Stanisław Łubieński shows how consumer society has spun out of control, leading to the point of environmental catastrophe. Finally, Vine Editions, a new non-profit publisher based in Detroit with a focus on world literature, is about to bring out its first title, Piotr Paziński’s Bird Streets (Ptasie ulice) translated by Ursula Phillips. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

March 4, 2022  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Andriana Hamas, Carol Khoury, and Eva Wissting

Literary awards, bookstore revivals, and political upheavals from Sweden, Bulgaria, and Gaza!

This week, our editors bring news of a major literature prize in Sweden, disturbing governmental policies repressing freedom of speech in Bulgaria, and the rebirth of a central bookstore in Gaza. Read on to find out more!

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

The Nordic Council has announced the nominees of its annual Literature Prize, which has awarded a work of fiction in a Nordic language­­­ since 1962. The languages include Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, Greenlandic, Faroese, and Sámi. The literary works considered may be novels, plays, essays, short stories, or poetry of artistic and literary quality. The purpose of the award is to create interest in the literatures and languages within the cultural community of the Nordic region. This year, eleven nominated writers represent all the countries and languages of the region, and four of the works are novels written in Swedish.

Kerstin Ekman is one of Sweden’s most acclaimed writers, with a long list of publications since her debut in 1959. In 1994, she was awarded the Nordic Council Literature Prize for the novel Blackwater, available in English translation by Joan Tate. This year, she is nominated for The Wolf Run, a novel about a man in his seventies and his relationship to nature as he comes to terms with his life. The other Swedish nominee is Jesper Larsson, for Den dagen den sorgen (literally translated as That Day That Sorrow, or also as “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”), about a single father and his relationship to his teenage daughter. Finnish writer Kaj Korkea-aho, nominated for Röda rummet, also writes in Swedish, and so does Ålandic writer Karin Erlandsson, who is nominated for the novel Hem. The winner will be announced on November 1, during the Nordic Council’s Session in Helsinki. Previous winners include the internationally renowned Sofi Oksanen (Dog Park, Purge, When the Doves Disappeared), Jon Fosse (The Other Name, Trilogy, Morning and Evening), and Nobel Prize laureate Tomas Tranströmer.

More financial support to Swedish writers is on the way in the form of a crisis package. Because of the consequences of the pandemic faced by many writers during the past two years, the Swedish Authors’s Fund has received thirty million SEK from the government. The organization has now decided that around 1,500 writers and literary creators who were previously granted scholarships will each receive an additional amount of approximately twenty thousand SEK.

READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 7th August 2015: Nah Nah Nah NEA!

August 7, 2015  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Weekly News Roundup, 22nd August 2014: PEN Awards, Don’t Kill Lawyers!

August 22, 2014  |  in News  |  by Patty Nash

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Congratulations are in order: a virtual round of applause to the Asymptote contributors and staff lauded in the 2014 PEN Translation Fund winners: blog friend, interviewer, and invaluable assistant managing editor Eric M. B. Becker, for his translation of 2014 Neustadt winner and Mozambican author Mia Couto; and contributing editor Sayuri Okamoto for translating Japanese author Gozo Yoshimasu (“untranslatable?” ha! Just take a whiff of our January 2011 issue); former contributor Benjamin Paloff for his work with Czech writer Richard Weiner; and Philip Metres and Dmitri Psurtsev for their work with Russian writer Arseny Tarkovsky (sneak peek in our October 2012 issue). Felicitations!

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