The Humanities in Translation (HiT) Prize

Funded by the Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and Northwestern University Press

The Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and Northwestern University Press are pleased to announce the Humanities in Translation (HiT) Prize competition for 2025-26. The goal of the prize is to encourage new translations of important literary and scholarly books from around the world, particularly from non-Western and less commonly translated languages. The prize aims to bring greater international attention to such works from across the humanities and to reaffirm the scholarly value of the craft of translation itself.

The HiT Prize will be awarded annually to a previously unpublished translation that can appeal to readers outside and within academia, including undergraduate students, that expands literary canons, and that will potentially inspire future scholarly work.

2025-26 THEME: For this year’s competition, we are especially interested in short-form creative fiction or nonfiction (short story or essay collections, novellas, etc.) that displays evocative, imaginative, and insightful approaches to the theme of “living in monstrous times,” broadly conceived. We interpret what constitutes the monstrous, and the search for humanity in adversity, capaciously and welcome submissions of translated works from any time period.

We are also keen to promote books that will help introduce a global audience to underrepresented and experimental voices from marginalized communities and under-translated languages. The prize is judged by a rotating committee of Northwestern faculty in literature, the humanities, and the writing program.

The winner will receive a total cash prize of $5,000 ($1,000 at the announcement of the initial award, followed by $2,000 on submission of the completed translation to the Publisher in acceptable form, and $2,000 on publication) as well as a commitment from Northwestern University Press to publish the finished work. The work submitted for consideration must not be under contract elsewhere.

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How to Enter

To enter the competition, please submit a dossier that includes the following:

• A proposal that describes or summarizes the work to be translated, states the intended audience, and explicates the larger literary, historical, and scholarly significance of the text and the author.
• An up-to-date CV.
• A sample of the proposed translation along with corresponding text in the original (20-25 pages).
• A specific timeline for completion. Applicants should be aware that the complete translated manuscript must be submitted for publication no more than nine months after the prize recipient is selected.
• The names of up to three references (who will be contacted if necessary).
• Attestation that the translator has secured the rights to the translation or that the work is in the public domain. While it is the translator’s responsibility to secure the rights, the Prize committee may be able to reimburse the translator for any resulting fees up to $1,500.
• The titles and publishers of any competing editions currently in print.

Complete dossiers should be sent to the Global Humanities Initiative: hitprize@northwestern.edu .

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2025.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How long should my proposal be?

A: The proposal should be no longer than seven-to-ten pages. The suggested length does not include the CV or translation sample.

Q: How do I know if the work I want to translate is in the public domain?

A: A helpful resource for determining if material is in the public domain is available here: http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm.

Q: How do I determine who holds rights for a work that is not in the public domain?

A: Look at the copyright page for the original-language edition. The publisher of record can be directly emailed to inquire if they continue to hold the rights. If the publisher is no longer in existence, a modest amount of internet searching can determine who bought them out and who may hold the rights now.

Verifying the rightsholder is all that is needed for the application, but the selected translator will be responsible for securing the rights after they’ve been chosen.

Q: What if my translation will take longer than the proposed timeline to complete?

A: The timeline to completion section of the proposal should be as accurate as you can anticipate. Projects that have strong merit but cannot be completed within the preferred timeframe may be invited back for consideration in future years of the competition.

Q: How long will it take to know if the proposal has been selected as the winner?

A: The committee will take up to twelve weeks from the final application deadline of January 15, 2025, to notify the winner. If you have any further questions, please send them to hitprize@northwestern.edu