Translation Fund

Who may apply

The fund is open to Danish publishers wishing to publish a work in a Danish translation or by foreign publishers wishing to publish a work translated from Danish.

Applications for support can only be made after the applicant has acquired the rights to the work and signed a contract with the translator. The literature committee cannot grant support to a translation published before the deadline for which the application is submitted.

Purpose of the program

The aim of the fund is to promote Danish literature abroad and translated literature in Denmark.
Grants are awarded for all or part of the translation fee for a work published in translation.

Grants are available for literature (prose, poetry and drama), non-fiction of general interest (including essays and biographies), comic books and children’s books.

Nordic translations 
The Nordic Council of Ministers’ culture and arts programme has taken over the administration of the scheme to support the translation of literature and drama from one Nordic language to another. In the case of grants for Nordic translations, applications should be made in the Nordic country in which the work was originally published. For the translation of works from Danish, application should therefore be made to the Danish Arts Council Literature Committee. In addition to the above-mentioned genres, grants are also awarded to special issues of magazines with a Nordic focus.

Special consideration is given to applications for grants for the translation of poetry and drama; and works which have been awarded the Nordic Council Prize for Literature will be accorded top priority for up to three years after winning the prize. Priority is also given to the minority language areas in the Nordic countries.

When a work has been supported by a translation grant from the Nordic Council of Ministers this must be acknowledged on the title page and on the dust jacket or, in the case of paperback editions, on the back cover.
In all of the above instances the logo of the Nordic Council of Ministers must also be displayed. 
The publisher shall send three copies of the translated work to the Danish Arts Council Literary Committee. The publisher shall also send one copy of the translated work to the Nordic Council of Ministers Secretariat, Store Strandstræde 18, DK-1255 Copenhagen K, Denmark and another copy to Nordic House, Sturlugötu 5, 101, Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Nordic translation grants are administered by the NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad – Fiction and Non-Fiction) in collaboration with the various national literature centres.

Contacts in the Nordic countries:
Norway: NORLA
Sweden: the Swedish Arts Council
Finland: FILI – Finnish Literature Exchange
Island: the Icelandic Literature Fund
Faeroe Islands: the Faeroese Society of Authors
Greenland: the Greenlandic Society of Authors
Lapland: the Sami Artists’ Council

How your application will be evaluated

In assessing an application weight is laid on the quality of the work in question and on the translator’s qualifications. The translator is normally expected to be a professional with at least one translated work published or performed within the same genre as the work for which support is being sought.
As a rule, the awarding of a grant is conditional on the work being translated from the language in which it was originally published and into the translator’s own mother tongue.

In the case of non-fiction, the committee’s main criterion is that the work must be of general interest. Grants are not awarded for the translation of other types of non-fiction, such as educational textbooks.

Who will evaluate your application

The Danish Arts Council Literature Committee makes an assessment based on the merits of the application.

How much you may apply for

Applications can be made for a grant to cover all or part of the translation fee.  Usually, however, grants will cover only a proportion of the translation fee. 

What the application must contain

We recommend that you read the application form carefully and have all the necessary information and documents/files to hand before completing the application.

The following documents must be attached:
• The translator’s C.V.
• Three (3) pages of sample text in Danish (or, alternatively, in English, French, Norwegian, Swedish or German).
Applications which do not include the requisite information and documentation will not be considered.

Once you have submitted the application

When you submit your electronic application you will automatically receive an e-mail acknowledging its receipt, with a copy of the application attached.

You will be informed of the committee’s decision no more than 12 weeks after the deadline. During the 12 weeks applications are prepared for the committee, sent out, read and processed. In the event of conflict of interest, cases must go through an additional process. Once all cases from the same deadline have been completed, the result is sent out by email.