2016 PEN/Heim Translation Series
PEN America is thrilled to showcase the work of recipients of the 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund. Each week through the fall, we’ll feature excerpts from winning projects along with essays by the translators on what drew them to a particular piece and why their work matters now. The Fund, which awards grants of $2,000-$4,000 to promote the publication and reception of translated world literature in English, received a total of 171 applications, spanning a wide array of languages of origin, including Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Chinese, Czech, Hindi, Yiddish, and more.
Since 2009, the Fund’s annual contribution for grant awards has been augmented by support from Amazon.
On Translating Miljenko Jergović
Russell Scott Valentino is the recipient of a 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Rod by Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Croatian writer Miljenko Jergović. Read an excerpt of the translation… More
Magic and History: On Translating René Despestre
Written while the author was in exile and inspired by childhood memories of the village where he grew up, this classic of the Haitian literary tradition enchants the reader… More
That Which Issues Forth: My Love Affair with Juana I
Ana Arzoumanian's poem cycle, Juana I (Alción Editora, 2006), offers an intimate look at the queen of Castille and Aragon, dubbed mad by her contemporaries for sake of political… More
Economy of Means: On Translating Gemma Gorga
Based on the concept of a medieval book of hours, Gemma Gorga's award-winning collection of poetry, Llibre dels minuts (Book of Minutes) distills the devotional and quotidien aspects of… More
His Craft of Narration: On Translating Geet Chaturvedi
First published in 2008, Geet Chaturvedi's lyrical, award-winning novella, Simsim, was recognized for its groundbreaking contribution to contemporary Hindi fiction. Simsim narrates the clash between two Indias—one old and… More
Bridging French Modernism: On Translating Marcel Schwob
Marcel Schwob's Vies Imaginaries (1896) is a collection of 22 fictio-documentary stories blending the fantastic and the biographical, and which would later influence Borges' A Universal History of Infamy. More
The Sky According to Google
"I once heard my mother say there should be a special word to refer to a betrayal by someone you love. The offense, she insisted, deserved a separate sentence,… More
Germanness
Sarajevo was liberated in April of 1945. A month or two later they came for Opapa to take him to a camp, from which he, like all his compatriots,… More
The Illiterate Man
My first years were spent behind the shutters, in a room without engravings, in an archaeological silence a thousand years in the making... More
Flower Sedan
Of course, Mother assumed I was a virgin. She insisted I ride the flower sedan, that I was not to miss out on a prerogative so cherished. More