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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

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