Daesan Foundation accepting grant applications for translation of Korean literary works

The Daesan Foundation is accepting applications for translation of Korean literary works.

Applicants can choose a Daesan Literary Award prize-winning work that has not been translated into the target language, or others that the translator wishes to work on. The foundation funded translations of 13 Korean works last year.

This year, up to 15 million won ($12,400) will be given for a single translation work, depending on the language and length of the selected piece.

For English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and northern European languages, the maximum grant amount is set at 13 million won for poetry. It is 15 million won for novels, plays and children‘s literature. For Chinese, Russian, Turkish and all other languages, the grant for each work is set at 70 percent of the amount given to the first group of languages or less.

“We have seen great progress in recent years thanks to the outstanding works of writers and translators that gained global attention,” a Daesan Foundation official said Wednesday. “We hope that the grant can serve as starting point for foreign readers to become familiar with Korean literature in the near future.”

Applications for this year’s translation grants will be accepted until June 2 through the foundation’s official website. Grant recipients will be announced in August.

By Kim Hae-yeon (hykim@heraldcorp.com)