Malta Arts Council Translation Grants

The Cultural Export Fund Translation Grants, which are managed and distributed by the Malta Arts Council, aim to increase the visibility of Maltese literature on international platforms by offering funding for translation projects of Maltese language texts into other languages. The grants are meant to cover translators’ and revisors’ fees  and they can cover up to 100 % of these costs. Translation rights, printing and promotion are not covered by the grants.

Eligible applicants may be Malta based individuals, Maltese registered publishers or foreign publishers. Each grant, which carries a maximum fund of 5000 euros, may be awarded to projects involving the translation of Maltese language literary texts such as fiction, poetry, drama, biographies, reference books focusing on culture and the arts, and graphic novels. Funding is also offered for the surtitling and supertitling of TV drama scripts, film scripts, animation scripts, creative documentaries written and/or produced by a Malta based audiovisual company and/or Maltese broadcaster. The work needs to have already been broadcast.

The fund is competitive and each proposal that meets the eligibility criteria will be evaluated according to established criteria by an independent evaluation board. In order to ensure transparency a report detailing the number of points assigned to the project for each criterion is made available for the interested candidate after the publication of the results.

There are three main selection criteria:

1. Quality of project proposed
2. International engagement
3. The Professional and financial management of the project.

Those interested in applying should study these criteria in detail in the Official Guidelines of the Fund on the Arts Council CEF webpage. They should also note that the deadline for submissions is 18 October 2017.

The National Book Council strongly urges all writers, translators and publishers to take their translation projects off the shelf and apply for funding now. This is a great opportunity that must not be missed.