PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants

The PEN/Heim Translation Fund was established in the summer of 2003 by an endowed gift of $730,000 from Michael Henry Heim and Priscilla Heim, in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations currently appearing in English. Its purpose is to promote the publication and reception of translated international literature in English.

Thanks to the generosity of Michael Henry Heim and Priscilla Heim’s endowment, PEN America has awarded grants to almost 200 winning projects. The Fund has been uniquely successful in finding publishers for major international works, encouraging younger translators to enter the field, and introducing English-speaking readers to new and exciting voices. All other criteria being equal, preference is given to translators at the beginning of their career, and to works by underrepresented writers working in underrepresented languages.

Over the 24 years of its existence, the Fund has given grants of $2,000–$4,000 to nearly 200 translations from over 35 languages, including Armenian, Basque, Estonian, Farsi, Finland-Swedish, Lithuanian and Mongolian, as well as French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Among the 108 projects awarded grants in the Fund’s first 13 years of operation (2004–2016), 91 (nearly 70 percent) have thus far been published or are forthcoming from a publisher. Many of those books found their publishers as a result of being awarded a grant by the Fund. In addition to being excerpted and favorably reviewed in a host of magazines including The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, The Paris Review, Words Without Borders, The Literary Review, Mandorla, and many others, about 20 percent of the published PEN/Heim Translation Fund projects have won or been shortlisted for major literary awards.

Featured Translations supported by PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants

2026 Recipients

For the 2026 cycle, the judges reviewed applications from a wide array of languages of origin, genres, and time periods. Selected from this vast field of applicants are 10 projects, including Indonesian, Wolof, Kven, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, and more. Each project will receive a grant of $4,000 to support the translation’s completion.

Judges: Elizabeth Lowe (Chair), Elvira Blanco, Ezra Fitz, Denise Kripper, Jenny McPhee, Mario Pereira, Shuchi Saraswat, Declan Spring

• Dominica Chang’s translation from the French of Among the Dunes by Louis Camara
• Milena Sanabria Contreras and Allison Stickley’s translation from the Spanish of A Brief History of Failure by Fátima Villalta
• Robin Driver’s translation from the Brazilian Portuguese of Aquarium Fish by Rafaela Tavares Kawasaki
• Eirill Alvilde Falck’s translation from the Kven and Norwegian of The Heart of the Forest by M. Seppola Simonsen
• Marissa Grunes’ translation from the Spanish of Antarctica by Fabián Espejel
• Eliza Marciniak’s translation from the Polish of The Secret of the Looking-Glass by Deotyma (pen name of Jadwiga Łuszczewska)
• Tímea Sipos’ translation from the Hungarian of Crybaby by Krisztián Marton
• Annie Tucker’s translation from the Indonesian of Suspicious Days by Dea Anugrah
• Quentin Véron’s translation from the French of Solitude of a Python in Paris by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar)
• Yě Yě’s translation from the Chinese ofAll of Our Homecomings Are Feted as Yi New Year by Jike Ayou

View All Winners

Eligibility

• Translations of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or drama, originally written by a single individual.
• Translations should not have previously appeared in English in print or should have appeared only in an outdated or otherwise flawed translation.
• The project must be an unpublished work in progress that will not be published prior to April 15, 2027, as the grants are intended to support the completion of a final book.
• There are no restrictions on the nationality or citizenship of the translator, but the works must be translated into English.
• Projects may have a maximum of two translators but are limited to one original author.

NOT eligible: Translations of works with multiple original authors, such as anthologies, translations of literary criticism, and scholarly or otherwise technical texts. 

Note: Translations from Italian will automatically be considered for the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature.

Note: Translators may only submit one project per year. Projects that have been previously submitted and have not received a grant are unlikely to be reconsidered in a subsequent year. Translators who have previously been awarded PEN/Heim Translation Fund grants are ineligible to reapply for three years after receiving a grant–for example, grant recipients from 2023 are now eligible to reapply.

Submission Guidelines

Applications are only accepted via Submittable. All documents should be formatted in 12pt Times New Roman, single spaced, with 1-inch margins.

The online submission form requires the following:

• A 1-2 page statement outlining the work and describing its importance.
• A biography and bibliography of the author, including information on translations of their work into other languages.
• A CV of the translator, no longer than 3 pages.
• If the book is not in the public domain and the project is not yet under contract, please include a photocopy of the copyright notice on the original (the copyright notice is a line including the character ©, a date, and the name of the copyright holder, which appears as part of the front matter in every book). Please note that for some foreign titles, the front matter may not include a ©. Additionally, please include a letter from the copyright holder stating that English-language rights to the book are available; a copy of an email from the copyright holder is sufficient.
• If the translation is currently under contract with a publisher, please submit a copy of the contract.
• A translation sample is required. For prose, this should be within the range of 5-8 pages (when formatted as required, this will be approximately 3,000-5,000 words). For poetry, please include 1-2 poems per page, within an 8–10 page range.
• The same passage in the original language (and, if the work has been previously translated, the same passage in the earlier version). 

Please consult our FAQ before directing any questions to [email protected]