NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman Announces $300,000 for 20 Literature Translation Fellowships

Since 1981, the NEA has awarded 323 Fellowships for works in 61 languages from 71 countries.

September 7, 2010

		Contact: Liz Stark 202-682-5744 starke@arts.gov

Washington, DC -- NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman today announced $300,000 in 20 literary fellowships to support the translation of works into English.  Available to previously published literary translators for specific projects, many of these fellowships will result in the first English translation of outstanding works of international literature.  This year's projects vary from the ancient to the contemporary, involving works in 13 different languages from 17 countries ranging from novels and poetry to memoirs and myths:

• Esther Allen (Spanish) for Zama, a 1956 novel by Argentine  writer Antonio Di Benedetto
• Robert Bononno (French) for The Mysteries of Paris by novelist Eugène Sue
• Sean Cotter (Romanian) for Belgrade in Five Friends and Other Poems by Nichita Stănescu
• Bill Coyle (Swedish) for a collection of contemporary poetry by Håkan Sandell
• Anne O. Fisher (Russian) for The Joyous Science: The Selected Poetry of Maxim Amelin
• Dick Gerdes (Spanish) for the Mexican novel Península, Península by Hernán Lara Zavala
• Jason Grunebaum (Hindi) for Manzoor Ahtesham's novel The Tale of the Missing Man
• Joshua Halberstam (Yiddish) for Chassidim Re-tell, a collection of Chassidic tales by Rabbi Tovia Halberstam
• Yasmeen S. Hanoosh (Arabic) for Closing His Eyes, a collection of short stories by Iraqi writer and critic Luay Hamza Abbas
• Deborah Hoffman (Russian) for Eufrosinia Kersnovskaia's memoir How Much Is a Person Worth?
• Edward Gauvin (French) for Fear of the First Line, selected stories from Belgian writer Bernard Quiriny
• Tsipi Keller (Hebrew) for Reality Crumbs, a collection of Raquel Chalfi's poetry 
• Myung-Hee Kim (Korean) for Steel and Flesh: Korean Stories 1945-48, an anthology of prose from North and South Korea 
• Elizabeth Novickas (Lithuanian) for Petras Cvirka's 1934 novel Frank Kruk
• Aaron Poochigian (Ancient Greek) for the epic 6,000-line poem "Argonautika" by Apollonius of Rhodes 
• Jessica Powell (Spanish) for Woman in Battle Dress, a historical novel by Cuban writer Antonio Benítez Rojo 
• John Galbraith Simmons (French) for Marquis de Sade's novel Aline and Valcour
• Clare Sullivan (Spanish/Zapotec) for Black Olive Tree and Other Zapotec Poems by Mexican poet Natalia Toledo
• John Taylor (French) for Paper Collage, a collection of essays by Georges Perros
• Kelly Washbourne (Spanish) for Legends of Guatemala, a collection of eight tales and myths by Nobel Laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias 

Complete descriptions of each funded project are available at arts.gov.

"Translation brings works of literature to new audiences, and translation is, itself, an art," said NEA Chairman Landesman.  "These 20 projects will bring new words and the worlds they describe to American audiences.  We are proud of the NEA's 30-year history of investing in literary translation."

Former NEA Translation Fellow (2009) Charlotte Mandell said, "My translation of Mathias Énard's French novel Zone would never have been possible without the grant I received from the NEA, since that was my sole source of income when I was working on Zone. Imagine our literary canon without Proust or Flaubert or Balzac in English -- how much poorer we would be culturally and intellectually. Without the NEA, many of the books that could become classics in the future -- Roberto Bolaño's 2666 comes to mind -- would not be published at all in English."

The recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships will receive either $12,500 or $25,000 depending on the scope and merit of their projects. (The amount of the awards is pending Congressional approval of the NEA's fiscal year 2011 budget.)

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established, bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the nation's largest annual national funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. For more information, please visit www.arts.gov.

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