The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants were established in 2003 by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) following a gift of $730,000 by Michael Henry Heim, a noted literary translator. Heim believed that there was a 'dismayingly low number of literary translations currently appearing in English'. The Grants' purpose is to promote the publication and reception of translated world literature in English. Grants are awarded each year to a select number of literary translators based on quality of translation as well as the originality and importance of the original work. The Fund's mission is to promote the publication and reception of world literature.
Since the first grants were awarded in 2004, the Fund has supported translations of books from over 30 languages.
Many works supported by the Fund are eventually published, and a significant number have won or been shortlisted for major literary awards including the Best Translated Book Award, the Northern California Book Award for Translation, the R. R. Hawkins Award for Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Book, the National Jewish Book Award for Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, and Griffin Poetry Prize. Others have received additional support from the Lannan Foundation, or been named one of the New York Public Library's annual list of 25 Books to Remember.
Previously known as the PEN Translation Fund Grants, the awards were renamed in honor of Heim, who insisted on complete anonymity, after his passing in 2012.
List of recipients
2004
The names of ten winners were announced. The voting members of the Advisory Board were Esther Allen, Sara Bershtel, Barbara Epler, Michael Henry Heim, and Eliot Weinberger. Andrea Berger for Zsolt Lang's Bestiarium Transylvaniae, vol. I: The Birds of the Air, a novel in Hungarian Philip Boehm for Christoph Hein's Settlement, a novel in German (Metropolitan Books, 2008) Peter Cole for The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, c.950–1492, a collection of poetry in Hebrew (Princeton University Press, 2007) Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander for Jaime Sáenz's The Night, a poem in Spanish (Princeton University Press, 2012) Idra Novey for Paulo Henriques Britto's The Clean Shirt of It, a collection of poems in Portuguese (BOA Editions, 2007) Joonseong (Jason) Park for Song Yong's Diary of a Vagabond, a collection of stories and novellas in Korean (Codhill Press, 2008) Kristin Prevallet for Sony Lab'ou Tansi's The Other World: Unpublished Writings, a collection of prose in French Timothy Sergay for Aleksandr Pavlovich Chudakov's A Gloom Descends Upon the Ancient Steps, a novel in Russian Gerald Turner for Patrik Ouředník's Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, a novel in Czech (Dalkey Archive Press, 2005) Elizabeth Winslow for Dunya Mikhail's The War Works Hard, a collection of poems in Arabic (New Directions Publishing, 2005)