Eligibility
Eligibility
If you are an enrolled undergraduate in the United States and you are translating into English from one of our source languages, you are eligible.
Who can enter
You are eligible if you are:
- An enrolled undergraduate at a college or university in the United States, including two-year and community colleges
- 18 or older
- Able to submit from a .edu email address
There is no requirement about your major, your year, your course load, or whether you are pursuing a degree. Students in engineering, nursing, computer science, and business are as welcome here as students in comparative literature.
You are not eligible if you have already graduated, or if you are enrolled in a graduate program. If that is you and you would still like to be involved, we are recruiting readers.
Entry is currently limited to institutions in the United States. We are considering opening to Canadian institutions in a future cycle.
Source languages
Your translation must be into English, from one of these 18 languages:
- Arabic
- Burmese
- Chinese (Cantonese)
- Chinese (Mandarin)
- Filipino / Tagalog
- French
- German
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Persian (Farsi)
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Vietnamese
What you may translate
Anything that can be translated. Poetry, prose fiction, drama, essays, speeches, letters, journalism, a sequence of poems — all of it is welcome, and no genre is held to a different standard.
The source text itself may come from anywhere: a book, a manuscript, an archive, a periodical, a recording you transcribed. You will be asked to send the source passage that corresponds to your translation, along with its bibliographic details.
Limits
- Length. Up to 1,000 words in English. There is no minimum, and a short entry is not at a disadvantage.
- One entry per person. No exceptions, so send the one you most want read.
- No co-translation. Each entry carries one name and must be the work of that person. Getting feedback from an advisor or a native speaker is normal and does not make your work a co-translation.
Originality
Your translation must be your own work.
An existing published translation of the same text does not disqualify you. Good texts get retranslated; that is how translation works. What is not permitted is producing your version by editing or paraphrasing someone else’s.
Next
Read how to submit for what to prepare and how the process works.