Folding Rock Translation Fellowship

Folding Rock, Literature Across Frontiers (LAF), and Wales Literature Exchange (WLE) are delighted to invite applications for the inaugural Folding Rock Translation Fellowship, an opportunity for an emerging literary translator to spend a year at the heart of three of Wales’s most distinctive literary organisations.

The fellow will work across the year to scout, select, and translate three short-form literary texts from Welsh into English, for publication across three consecutive issues of Folding Rock magazine. The fellowship is designed to give a translator at an early stage of their career the time, editorial support, and professional platform to develop their practice and to make a genuine, lasting contribution to literary culture in Wales and beyond.

About the Partners

Folding Rock: New Writing from Wales and Beyond is a literary magazine publishing new original writing and texts in translation. It champions authors from Wales and the broader Anglophone and international literary world, and is available in independent shops across Europe, North America, and Asia, with a growing international subscription base.

Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) is a European platform for literary exchange, translation and policy dialogue, based at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. LAF promotes literary exchange between Wales and the wider world, supports translators at all career stages, and has worked with publishers, festivals, book fairs, literary organisations and individual writers across more than forty countries in Europe and beyond for 25 years.

Wales Literature Exchange (WLE / Cyfnewidfa Lên Cymru) works to promote the literature of Wales internationally, facilitating the translation of Welsh writing — in both Welsh and English — into other languages, and supporting Welsh authors to reach new readers around the world and translators of Welsh literature in their professional development. WLE is also based at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

What the Fellowship Involves

Over the course of a year (October 2026 – September 2027), the fellow will:

• Scout and propose a selection of texts in the original Welsh for consideration — short-form literary work of 1,000–4,000 words, fiction or non-fiction
• Work collaboratively with the partners to agree on three texts for translation
• Translate the three agreed texts into English, with editorial support from the Folding Rockand LAF / WLE teams
• See all three translations published in Folding RockIssues 007, 008, and 009 (March, July, and November 2027)
• Pitch the translated work and, where appropriate, the source authors’ titles to publishers and agents
• Write a short reflective essay (c.1,000 words) on their year — the discoveries made, the process, the writers encountered — to be shared with LAF/WLE for its literary translation development programme

The fellow will be encouraged to engage with LAF and WLE’’s networks, events, and expertise throughout the year, and Folding Rock‘s editorial team will offer creative and editorial guidance. This is a genuinely collaborative fellowship, not a commission.

The Fellowship Fee

The fellow will receive a fellowship fee of £1,000, in addition to which copyright fees will be paid directly to the authors of the original works selected. The fee reflects a year-long engagement and is intended to support the fellow’s exploration and scouting time as well as the translation work itself.

In addition, we are grateful to O’r Pedwar Gwynt, Barn and Barddas for offering a year’s subscription to their magazines as research tools for possible source materials for the texts to be translated. 

Who Should Apply

We are looking for a translator who:

• is at an early stage of their literary translation career — this may be someone who has translated and published individual texts but not yet a full-length book in translation, or a translator returning to the field after a break;
• translates from Welsh into English;
• has a strong sense of literary curiosity and an appetite for scouting new work, not only translating texts they already know;
• can demonstrate a genuine interest in Welsh literature;
• is comfortable working independently as well as in collaboration with editorial teams.

There is no requirement to be based in Wales, though we particularly welcome applications from translators with a connection to Welsh literary or cultural life.

Early career translators who work from Welsh into English are the primary focus of this fellowship, which is concerned with bringing Welsh-language writing to international audiences. If you are a literary translator working from Welsh into other languages, contact us to register in our database and find out about other possible future opportunities.

How to Apply

Please apply by 31 August 2026 by completing the online form and attaching the following:

• a covering letter (maximum 500 words) introducing yourself, your literary translation practice, and why this fellowship interests you;
• a short note on the kind of work — authors, genres, themes — you would want to scout (maximum 300 words; this is not a firm proposal and will not be held to);
• a sample of your translation work: one or two translated short prose texts (fiction or creative non-fiction) which can be extracts or standalone pieces, with the original alongside (up to 3,000 words of translation in total)’
• a brief CV or equivalent (maximum two pages);

Applications can be submitted in Welsh or English. We are not able to offer feedback on unsuccessful applications at the longlisting stage, but we will notify all applicants of the outcome.

Folding Rock, LAF and WLE are committed to a fair and open selection process. We particularly encourage applications from translators who are underrepresented in literary publishing, including translators of colour, disabled translators, and translators from lower-income backgrounds.

Questions about the fellowship may be directed to post@waleslitexchange.org

Key Dates

Open call published: 7 July 2026

Deadline for applications: 31 August 2026

Appointment confirmed: 30 September 2026

Fellowship begins: 1 October 2026