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NEA Awards $250,000 for 16 Literature Translation Fellowships

In News by Dennis Abrams

By Dennis Abrams

NEAIt seems appropriate that after our recent article on giving translators the respect they deserve, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts has announced that $250,000 in grants will be awarded to 16 translators to support the translation of works into English from 13 languages and 15 countries.

Joan Shiegekawa, NEA senior deputy, said, “The NEA is proud to support translation, whether it’s through direct fellowships such as these or through our support of publishers which make these translated works available. Translation is an important and difficult task and these 16 individuals have shown the passion and talent needed to bring these international works to a new audience of readers.”

The Fiscal Year NEA Literature Translation Fellows are:

  • Mohammed A. Albakry, to support the translation from Arabic of Tahrir Plays and Performance Texts from the Egyptian Revolution. This project is in collaboration with Rebekah Maggor
  • David Borzutsky, to support the translation from Spanish of a collection of poetry by Chilean author Raul Zurita
  • Nancy Naomi Carlson, to support the translation from French for a poetry collection by African writer Abdourahman Waberi
  • David Dollenmayer, to support the translation from German of the novel A Garden in the North by Michael Kleeberg
  • Erdag Goknar, to support the translation from Ottoman Turkish of the epic poem Insurgency by Nazim Hikmet
  • Jan Hofer, to support the translation from Spanish of To Be in Pain: Texts from a Wounded Country by Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza
  • Christina E. Kramer, to support the translation from Macedonian of the novel The Path of the Eels by Albanian writer Luan Starova
  • Andrea Lingenfelter, to support the translation from Chinese of The Kite Family, a collection of fiction by contemporary Hong Kong writer Hon Lai Chu
  • Denise Newman, to support the translation from Danish of a collection of short stories, Baboon, by Danish author Naja Marie Aidt
  • George O’Connell, to support the translation from Mandarin of From Here to Here: New and Selected Poems by Chinese writer Hu Lan Lan. This project is in collaboration with Diana Shi
  • Mariana F. Past, to support the translation from Haitian Creole of Controversial Issues in Haitian History, a work of creative nonfiction by Michel-Rolph Trouillot. This project is in collaboration with Benjamin Hebblethwaite
  • Amanda Powell, to support the translation from Spanish of the novel El Gato de si mismo by Costa Rican writer Uriel Quesada
  • Daisy Rockwell, to support the translation from Hindi of the novel Falling Walls by Indian author Upendranath Ashk
  • Angela Rodel, to support the translation from Bulgarian of the novel The Physics of Sorrow by writer Georgi Gospondinov
  • Rimas Uzgiris, to support the translation from Lithuanian of selected poems by Lithuanian writer Judita Vaiciunaite
  • Hester Velmans, to support the translation from Dutch of the novel Slow Light by Dutch writer Herman Franke

Since 1981, the NEA has awarded 355 translation fellowships for works in 62 languages from 78 countries. With the addition of these 16 projects, three first-time languages will be added to the list: Bulgarian, Haitian Creole, and Macedonian.

To read more about the projects and their translators, click here (PDF).

About the Author

Dennis Abrams

Dennis Abrams is a contributing editor for Publishing Perspectives, responsible for news, children's publishing and media. He's also a restaurant critic, literary blogger, and the author of "The Play's The Thing," a complete YA guide to the plays of William Shakespeare published by Pentian, as well as more than 30 YA biographies and histories for Chelsea House publishers.