Current translation grant opportunities

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Translation grants

About English PEN’s translation grants

Our grants for translated literature support the movement of words and ideas across national and linguistic borders, championing bibliodiversity and reflecting the PEN Charter’s declaration that “literature knows no frontiers, and must remain a common currency among people”.

We run two core grants:

  • PEN Translates, our grant for publishers, supporting the translation costs of new full-length translations into English by UK-based publishers.

PEN Translates is open biannually for works of all forms, genres and styles, originally published in any language other than English, and from any part of the world.

  • PEN Presents, our samples grant for translators, supporting the creation of new sample translations into English from translators anywhere in the world, funding the often-unpaid labour of sample translation.

PEN Presents is open periodically, and each round takes a linguistic, regional, or other focus.

We occasionally run other discrete grant projects, or strands of our existing grants with dedicated focuses on particular literary communities.

We have two submission windows for our grants programme:

  • The Spring window – open 1 April to 31 May.
  • The Autumn window – open 1 October to 30 Novembe

Each time a submission window opens, this page will outline all the opportunities for the current window.

Current opportunities

The Autumn 2025 grants window is now open, closing 11.59pm GMT on 30 November.

In this window, the following opportunities are open for submission:

PEN Translates – our grant for UK publishers.

Open for applications to support the translation costs for titles publishing in the UK between August 2026 and August 2028, from any language and region.

Apply to PEN Translates

PEN Translates x SALT – a strand of our grant for publishers in partnership with the South Asian Literature in Translation project at the University of Chicago, for publishers anywhere outside South Asia.

Open for applications to support the translation costs for titles publishing in the UK between August 2026 and August 2028, from any language of South Asia.

Apply to PEN Translates x SALT

PEN Presents: Brazil – our grant for literary translators to propose projects for which they would like to create a translation sample.

This round is open to translators anywhere in the world for work of Brazilian literature of any form and genre. This round is in partnership with the British Council as part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture.

Apply to PEN Presents: Brazil

Promotional grants for South Asian literature in translation.

A discrete grant for festivals, publishers, bookshops and other event organisers and programmers anywhere outside South Asia, to support promotional activity for works of South Asian literature translated into English. Open for applications to support activities that will take place between January the translation costs for titles publishing in the UK between August 2026 and August 2028, from any language of South Asia.

Apply to the promotional grants

Translation grants assessor pool

Open to literary translators anywhere in the world to join our pool of independent freelance assessors, who evaluate the translation grant proposals we receive.

Apply to join the assessor pool