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2014 PEN/Heim Translation Series

PEN’s 2014 Translation Series focuses on the recipients of this year’s PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, with an amazing array of projects from around the world. Included in the series you’ll find treasures like Eric Becker’s translation of a previously unpublished short story by Mozambican author Mia Couto, Sholeh Wolpé’s translation from Persian of Farid ud-Din Attar’s beautiful The Conference of the Birds, and Zachary Ludington’s translation of Agustín Fernández Mallo’s kaleidoscopic Pixel Flesh. We also asked this year’s PEN/Heim translators to write short essays about what originally drew them to their projects and why they matter now.

The PEN/Heim Translation Fund, now in its eleventh year, awards grants of $2,000 to $4,000 to promote the publication and reception of translated world literature in English. Among the 50 projects awarded grants in the Fund’s first five years of operation, 39 have been published or are forthcoming from a publisher. We hope to increase that number with this year’s projects.

View the complete list of the 2014 grant recipients here.

Manhattan Tropics

Manhattan Tropics is the first novel of the Puerto Rican mass-migration to New York City, offering a panorama of mid-century life in El Barrio. Maney's translation deftly captures the… More

Chistopol Notebook

Though Tarkovsky is one of Russia's greatest poets of the twentieth century—on the ranks with Mandelstam, Akhmatova, and Brodsky—he remains little-known in the West. Philip Metres's and Dimitri Psurtsev's… More

The Kites

Set in Normandy during the Occupation, The Kites is a love story that draws on Gary's own experience of World War II. Published shortly before Gary's suicide, in 1980,… More

Lamentations of a Coconut Tree

This short story from the 2014 Neustadt Prize-winner was published after years of civil war following independence from Portugal in 1975 and is a chronicle of Mozambique's rebirth. Becker… More