English PEN has released the first shortlist for PEN Presents, the new award for sample translations that "aims to fund literary translators' work of creating samples, give publishers better access to titles from underrepresented languages and regions, and help diversify the translated literature landscape."
The 12 shortlisted translators have been awarded grants to create 5,000-word samples. Winners of the first round of PEN Presents will be named at the end of October. The program will open for proposals of works in any language and from any region in January 2023. Check out the complete PEN Presents shortlist here.
The finalists represent seven of the languages of India and include novels, short stories and memoir. Six samples will be chosen by the PEN Presents selection panel--seven experts from the U.K. and India--to be showcased in an issue on the PEN Presents platform, "an online catalogue of the most outstanding, original and bibliodiverse literature not yet published in English translation." They will also be given editorial support from English PEN and promoted to U.K. publishers.
"Selected from an extraordinarily large and strong set of proposals, this shortlist represents a remarkable breadth of outstanding Indian literature not yet published in English translation," said Will Forrester, translation and international manager at English PEN. "We are delighted that these 12 translators, authors and works cover such a range of languages, geographies and themes, and I am particularly thrilled by the number and quality of works by Dalit writers represented. This shortlist is a testament to the vitality of Indian literature in Indian languages, the urgent possibility of fostering their translation into English, and the talented community of literary translators who are poised to do so."
Preti Taneja, co-chair of English PEN's translation advisory group, commented: "From epic to memoir, novels to short stories, the quality of these shortlisted pitches testifies to the range and ambition of extraordinary writers and translators working across India and the diaspora today. We look forward to reading the samples, and to championing these works as they make their way to publishers and ultimately into readers' hands."