Development grants for literary translators

• For translators working into Dutch, Frisian, Papiamento or English: you may apply for a development grant twice per year. If you have previously received a project grant, your most recent decision must have been positive and issued no more than ten years ago. If you have not yet received a project grant (but meet one of the other entry requirements), you may apply for a development grant a maximum of six times. At least three of these grants must be used for training or mentoring.

• For translators working from Dutch, Frisian or Papiamento: you may submit a maximum of one application per year. If you wish to receive a second or subsequent development grant, your previous grant-funded plan must have been completed.

Once the entry requirements have been verified, the Foundation assesses your development plan. If the development objectives described are convincing and realistic, and the budget is sound, the grant will be awarded. If you apply for funding for a sample translation or publisher submission dossier, the literary quality of the proposed source text will also be assessed, based on your supporting statement.

This may include publication of one or more translations (not necessarily literary) in book form, or else publication of one or more translations in a cultural or literary journal or in an anthology. It may also include translations of graphic novels or non-fiction works, a theatre translation performed by a professional theatre company, or a libretto for an opera. Please refer to the explanatory notes to the scheme for a precise definition.

An overview of journals and organisations that receive (multi-year) funding from the Foundation is available here.

You will receive an automatic confirmation of receipt after submitting your application. The board will decide as soon as possible, and no later than eight weeks after receipt of a complete application. You will receive the decision by email. If positive, payment will be made within two weeks.

Applications are processed in order of receipt until the funding ceiling is reached. Thereafter, applications will be rejected on budgetary grounds.

For a sample translation, you may choose from any genre, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s and young adult literature, drama and graphic narrative. The key requirement is that the text is literary in nature. In the application form, you must briefly describe the literary quality of the book from which the sample is taken. The title will be assessed based on this supporting statement. Preference is given to proposals for translations of works by authors who have not previously, or not recently, been translated into Dutch.

For a publisher submission dossier, you may choose from any genre, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s and young adult literature, and graphic narrative. The dossier must consist of:  

• A translated text of five book pages (approximately 1,500 words or 100 lines of poetry).

• A well-substantiated reader’s report including at least three suggested foreign publishers to whom the dossier will be sent by the translator.

• In the application form, you must briefly describe the literary quality of the book and its market potential in the target language. The author selected must not already have a regular translator. You are not eligible to apply if two or more books by the same author in the same genre have been published in the chosen target language within the past ten years, unless adequately justified.

• Experience shows that publishers are most interested in either very recent titles or classics. An example of books actively promoted by the Dutch Foundation for Literature can be found here.

You have one year to carry out the approved plan.

Translators residing in Flanders are expected, wherever possible, to make use of the schemes offered by Flanders Literature.

Yes, you may. In that case, you must meet the conditions of the Project grants for literary translations scheme.

For translators working from Dutch, Frisian or Papiamento, the foreign publisher may apply for a Translation Grant to contribute towards the translation costs.

You are required to acknowledge the Foundation’s support. For example, if you prepare a sample translation and send it to publishers, you may include the following sentence: This sample translation was made possible in part by a development grant from the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

No final report is required. However, if you later submit a (subsequent) application under the Project grants for literary translations scheme, you will be asked to explain whether, and if so how, the development grant contributed to your professional development. This explanation is used solely for internal evaluation purposes. It is entirely separate from the new application and does not influence its assessment.