The New India Foundation (NIF) has officially announced the commencement of applications for the second round of the NIF Translation Fellowships, set to be granted in the year 2024. These fellowships are designed to promote the translation of significant non-fiction literary works from various Indian languages into English. Through this initiative, the NIF Translation Fellowships aim to illuminate India’s rich historical tapestry, which is woven from its diverse linguistic and literary traditions. The application window will be open from September 20, with submissions accepted until December 31.
The first round of NIF Fellowships, which were awarded for the translation of works from Bangla, Kannada, and Marathi, is on track for publication by 2025. These three substantial translations will complement the 32 books that have already been published under the auspices of the New India Foundation’s flagship Book Fellowship program. The overarching goal of the NIF Translation Fellowships is to further the NIF’s mission of supporting research and writing on all facets of Independent India.
Translators are invited to submit proposals for translating texts from ten Indian languages: Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Odia, Tamil, and Urdu. The selection for these fellowships will be based on the choice of the source text, the quality of the translation, and the overall project proposal. The source text, originating from any of the ten languages, can encompass various genres, as long as it sheds light on socio-economic or cultural aspects of Indian history from the year 1850 onward. It’s important to note that for the Translation Fellowship, the NIF is extending its mission to cover a broadly defined modern India, focusing only on the post-1947 era. Each fellowship, spanning a duration of six months, will provide a stipend of Rs 6 lakhs to the recipients, who will be translators and writers committed to bringing historical Indian-language texts to the English-speaking audience. The expectation is that by the end of the year, the fellows will successfully publish the translated works, which will be an extension of their initial winning proposals.
