Image: English PEN
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Grants To Create 5,000-Word Translation Samples
In an unusual move, English PEN and the Booker Prize Foundation have collaborated on what’s called the “PEN Presents x International Booker Prize” program. It’s described as “an edition of the English PEN award for sample translations, created in partnership with the Booker Prize Foundation to support translators from the global majority.”
Our readership is well aware that there are two Booker Prizes, of course, and that the newer one is the International Booker Prize for translated work. Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by India’s Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, you’ll recall, is the winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize, as covered in our report from May 20.
Media messaging from English PEN says that in recent years, both the PEN Translates program and that of the Booker’s international award have found the representation of authors from the global majority rising, but with the corresponding translators’ visibility “remaining significantly underrepresented.”
The new award regime was opened in 2024 in response to this, “by funding and promoting the work of global-majority translators so that more literature in translation, created by more people, reaches English language readers” who are willing to read it.
A 12-sample shortlist was used to create a group of six winning samples in this year’s initial round. And the works being judged were proposals from translators for grants to support them in producing sample translations of specific works.
This, of course, reflects the long-recognized trend of translators essentially adopting works they believe deserve translation. It is the basis for the understanding that translators are often the best scouts for new work that warrants translation into a wider field of languages and publication.
The jury for this first effort comprises:
- Preti Taneja, chair, a professor of world literature and creative writing at Newcastle University, and an English PEN Translation advisory co-chair;
- Safae El-Ouahabi, an associate at Rodgers, Coleridge, & White;
- Elisabeth Jaquette, translator from Arabic and executive director of Words Without Borders;
- Željka Marošević, editorial director at Random House’s Jonathan Cape;
- Nii Ayikwei Parkes, writer, editor, and director at Flipped Eye Publishing;
- Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the International Booker Prize; and
- Shash Trevett, a poet and translator from Tamil.
Each shortlisted translator is given a grant of £500 (US$677) to create 5,000-word samples of their proposed works. Independent assessors, drawn from English PEN’s pool of established literary translators, were commissioned to evaluate the samples and original works, before the selection panel then chose six projects as PEN Presents x International Booker Prize winners.
The 2025 PEN-and-Booker Winning Translators and Projects
- John Bengan for a translation from Cebuano of The Man with a Thousand Names: Stories by R. Joseph Dazo (Philippines)
- Christian Jil R. Benitez for a translation from Filipino of Time of the Eye by Alvin B. Yapan (Philippines)
- Pauline Fan for a translation from Malay of The Last Days of Jesselton by Ruhaini Matdarin (Malaysia)
- Mayada Ibrahim and Najlaa Eltom for a translation from Arabic of Ireme by Stella Gaitano (Sudan)
- Tiffany Tsao for a translation from Indonesian of The Born Out of Wedlock Club by Grace Tioso (Indonesia)
- Anam Zafar for a translation from Arabic of Playing with Soldiers by Tariq Asrawi (Palestine)
Will Forrester
In a comment from English PEN’s Will Forrester, head of literature programs, we read, “These six samples are stunningly different in voice and style and theme, and stunningly alike in their brilliance.
“They speak to why English PEN and the Booker Prize Foundation have partnered on this project: through concerted work in recognition of translators from the global majority, these exceptional titles, authors and translators have emerged. They represent several linguistic and regional ‘firsts’ for both organizations.”
Fiametta Rocco
And at the Booker, Rocco says, “PEN Presents x International Booker Prize was born out of a joint desire to platform, fund and support the best fiction translators from the Global Majority, who are currently chronically underrepresented in the UK publishing landscape.
“The translator of this year’s International Booker Prize winner, Heart Lamp, Deepa Bhasthi, was both the first work from Kannada—a major language spoken by an estimated 65 million people—and the first translator from the global majority to win the prize.
“The short story collection, written by Indian activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq, found its United Kingdom publisher after a translation sample was selected in an earlier round of PEN Presents, which highlights just how vital the program is.”
The winning translators reportedly have received editorial support from English PEN and worked with experienced editors over the last month. Their samples are now available to read on the English PEN site here.
These projects will be promoted to publishers and commissioning editors in the United Kingdom and the wider Anglophone publishing landscape. Half of all PEN Presents-winning projects have since been acquired by publishers.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the various projects of the Booker Prize Foundation is here, more on English PEN is here, more on the United Kingdom book-publishing industry is here, and more on translators and translation is here.
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