IALA announces its 2024 annual grants for creative writing and translation

The International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA) is pleased to announce its three new annual grants for one writer and two translators whose works-in-progress show exceptional literary and creative ability. Applications open on September 1 until September 30, 2024, and winners will be announced in December 2024.

The International Armenian Literary Alliance’s Creative Writing Grant will award $2,500 annually to one Armenian writer whose work-in-progress shows exceptional literary and creative ability. After awarding poets and fiction writers in previous years, the grant will be awarded in 2024 for a work of creative nonfiction. The 2024 grant will be judged by Susan Barba, Aram Mrjoian and Nadia Owusu.

IALA’s Creative Writing Grant, made possible by a generous donation from the Armenian Allied Arts Association, is meant to foster the development of contemporary Armenian literature in English through an annual monetary award and support Armenian writers who have historically lacked resources in the publishing world. Additionally, IALA will support grant recipients in promoting their publications through marketing on its website and social media channels, book reviews, readings and discussions.

“We’re excited for writers of diverse Armenian backgrounds, whose stories haven’t been widely told before, to send us their work,” says the head of IALA’s creative writing committee Nancy Agabian. “Nonfiction is a genre that encourages so many creative approaches – vulnerable stories of self, reported or researched stories, historical reconstruction, theoretical imagining of the future, and/or other forms – sometimes necessitating their combination. During this fraught period in Armenian history, we’re open to all such approaches.”

The Israelyan English Translation Grant from the International Armenian Literary Alliance will award $3,000 to one translator working from Armenian (either Western or Eastern) source texts into English, whose work-in-progress shows exceptional literary and creative ability. In 2024, the grant will be awarded for a work of literature (in any literary genre) written in Armenian and published any time after 1900.

Given the traumatic history of the Armenian diaspora, many readers are unable to read works in the original Armenian, and therefore, have centuries of literature inaccessible to them. Translators working with Armenian texts have traditionally lacked resources in the publishing world, as well as access to other funding, due to the overwhelming influence of so-called “majority languages.” IALA’s Israelyan English Translation Grant, made possible by a generous donation from Souren A. Israelyan, supports translators working with contemporary Armenian literature through a monetary award. Additionally, IALA will support grant recipients in promoting their publications through marketing on our website and social media channels, book reviews, readings and discussions.

The Israelyan Armenian Translation Grant from the International Armenian Literary Alliance will award $3,000 to one translator working from English source text into Eastern Armenian, whose work-in-progress shows exceptional literary and creative ability. In 2024, the grant will be awarded for a work of contemporary literature written by an Armenian in English. The complete list of texts that we would like to see translated feature authors who represent and support the Armenian literary community; their works were selected for their diversity in voices and subject matters.

Despite the growing number of translated works from English to Eastern Armenian in recent years, translated literature remains an area that needs further attention and development. IALA’s Israelyan Armenian Translation Grant, made possible by a generous donation from Souren A. Israelyan, supports translators working with literature written in the English language through a monetary award. Additionally, IALA will support grant recipients in promoting their publications through marketing on our website and social media channels, book reviews, readings and discussions.

“IALA understands that translation is hard work, requiring patience and concentration. We hope that the grants give our translators enough relief to focus on what matters: the work itself. We’re looking forward to receiving applications from lesser known writers, particularly those who come from marginalized communities,” says the head of IALA’s translation committee Garen Torikian.

The International Armenian Literary Alliance is a nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that supports and celebrates writers by fostering the development and distribution of Armenian literature in the English language. A network of Armenian writers and their champions, IALA gives Armenian writers a voice in the literary world through creative, professional and scholarly advocacy.

For more details, full eligibility criteria and more information on past grant recipients, visit IALA’s website, www.armenianliterary.org, or contact executive director Hovsep Markarian at admin@armenianliterary.org.