We are excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2020 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship. Each year since 2013, the Fellowship has brought together a cohort of Yiddish translators with experienced mentors and professional literary translators to workshop, discuss, and hone their craft together. Up to ten Translation Fellows will be selected to receive yearlong mentorship and training to complete book-length projects.
For the first time this year, we are accepting applications from both emerging and experienced translators. In previous years our focus has been on translators working on their first book-length translation project. Now that 60 translators have participated in the fellowship, we want to support their second and third projects, as well as offer support to other experienced Yiddish translators so that more high-quality Yiddish translations can be published and find their way to new readers. Whether you are trying your hand at translation for the first time or have already published a work of translation, the Fellowship offers opportunities to develop your translation practice and refine a work with the support of peers and mentors.
Fellows receive a grant of $4,500-5,500 (depending on experience), a research fund of up to $1,000, and will attend three two-day workshops at the Center during the 2020 calendar year. Applications are due October 30, 2019.
For full program details, visit our website: yiddishbookcenter.org/
Questions? Concerns about the deadline? Please contact me at translationfellowship@
Mit vareme grusn,
Mindl Cohen
Director of Translation and Collections Initiatives
What Past Fellows Say:
“I felt encouraged, spurred on, supported, and part of a community of wonderful, brilliant people.”
“Seeing and experiencing the passion, the urgency, and interest in reading and translating Yiddish literature, I am even more excited about future Yiddish translation projects.”
“The conversations with the other translators and center staff, the khavruse groups and the excellent workshop leaders have become a truly rich and worthwhile part of working on my own translations. I really take a lot of pleasure in how you have brought the personal experience of translation into a supportive public square. It’s a new process for me and has definitely stretched my thinking and working style in fresh directions.”
Recent publications arising from Fellowship projects include On the Landing: Stories by Yenta Mash, translated by Ellen Cassedy; Pioneers: The First Breach by S. An-sky, translated by Rose Waldman; and Judgment by David Bergelson, translated by Harriet Murav and Sasha Senderovich. Several other Fellowship projects are forthcoming this year. Other Fellows have received prestigious fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund. Translations by Fellows have been published widely in journals, including In geveb, Asymptote, Brooklyn Rail, and Words Without Borders.