A letter was received on July 8 from past grantees and members of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Advisory Board and shared with the PEN America board of trustees. We are grateful for the work of the signatories and appreciate their commitment to the aspirations and impact of the Heim fund in advancing literary translation. Regrettably, the letter repeats and makes baseless claims about PEN America and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant. We strongly dispute these allegations including the utterly unsubstantiated claim of neglect or mishandling of the grant process. On the contrary, the Heim grant awards have been consistently disbursed according to the terms of the endowment for more than 20 years to a wide-ranging and exceptional cohort of recipients.
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund operates on the basis of an endowment agreement that dictates the total funds available for annual grant prizes. We adhere to terms of this agreement, drawing down the maximum amount of funds to support translations each year. Applications are reviewed by an advisory board with a rotating chair. Some signatories of the letter have complained about the disbursement levels for more than a decade. The response from PEN America has been consistent that we will uphold the intent of the donors and fulfill the terms of the endowment agreement to preserve the availability of these vital resources for years to come. Contrary to the letter’s contention, the competition for the Heim grants is robust and its profile is well-respected in the translation community.
We are very proud that, since its inception, the Heim Fund has provided grants of $2,000–$4,000 to make possible more than 245 translations from over 59 languages, including Armenian, Basque, Estonian, Farsi, Finland-Swedish, Lithuanian, and Mongolian, as well as French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Many of the projects found publishers as a result of being awarded a grant by the Fund, and those books have been recognized widely in outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Granta, The Paris Review, Words Without Borders, The Literary Review, Mandorla, and many others.
The letter also repeats deeply offensive, conspiratorial and unfounded personal attacks on our longtime CEO Suzanne Nossel, including by trafficking in noxious tropes. The irresponsible allegations in the letter not only impugn the integrity of the organization they are an insult to our staff and body of work.
As one of the literary world’s foremost supporters of translators, PEN America takes grave exception to unsubstantiated accusations that its priorities are dictated “by English monolingualism and U.S. exceptionalism.” As evidenced in our support for translation, the PEN World Voices Festival, and a broad array of work with and on behalf of writers all over the world, nothing could be further from the truth. PEN America deeply values its relationships with PEN International and with the network of PEN centers worldwide.
