Literary translator residencies, Free Word Centre, London

Crossing Cultures: Translating Tales
Translator in residence programme at the Free Word Centre, London
September 2012 – May 2013

The Free Word Centre in London is offering two four-month residencies for practising literary translators in London, in association with the Translators Association, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

One translator will work from Turkish, as Turkey will be the country focus for the London Book Fair in April 2013. The second translator will be working from another language that is widely spoken in the local community, i.e. the local boroughs of Islington, Hackney, City and Tower Hamlets. These include: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese.

The role of translator in residence will be both challenging and rewarding. Therefore, FWC are looking for a professional, practising translator, with an aptitude for working in community settings and a proactive, collaborative approach that will engage a wide range of participants and audiences.
Translators will be responsible for researching ideas and developing innovative projects which will be realised with the support of Free Word, and where appropriate working with Free Word Founder Members and Associates, including The British Centre for Literary Translation, English PEN, the Reading Agency and Arvon.

Part of the programme of events should also include developing a project with the local community; this might include working with local schools, colleges, businesses or community groups.

A fee of £5000 is available for each individual residency, together with a small budget to realise projects.

Applications: Please send a CV and covering letter outlining why you want to be translator in residence at the Free Word Centre. Please include an outline of some initial ideas on how you would fulfil the project objectives and send to Siobhan [at] freewordonline.com by 11 June at 10am.

More information here.

freelance and other job links

Thought some of the following may be of interest. The Metropolitan Police are advertising for freelance translators with English and one or more of: Bengali, Cantonese, Danish, Estonian, Georgian, Gujarati, Korean, Norwegian, Punjabi, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish, Tamil and Thai. For translators who already have some experience; do read the requirements carefully. There's a useful-looking job page at the Polyglot Blog which might be worth keeping an eye on. For jobs in North America see this page. See the jobs tag on this blog for further ideas.