The UK's National Centre for Writing (NCW), based in Norwich, has opened applications for its 2026–27 Emerging Translator Mentorships — a six-month programme that pairs early-career literary translators with established mentors working into English across nine language strands.

The programme, now in its 17th year, was founded in 2010 by translator, writer and editor Daniel Hahn. Since then it has supported 150 translators working from 37 languages, according to the NCW's announcement reported by Publishing Perspectives.

The nine strands for the 2026–27 cycle are Danish (mentor Paul Russell Garrett), Dutch (Jonathan Reeder), Italian (Elena Pala), Korean (Clare Richards), Norwegian (Rosie Hedger), Polish (Sean Gasper Bye), Swiss German (Jamie Lee Searle), Literature from Taiwan (Jeremy Tiang) and Languages of India (Mohini Gupta). The Dutch strand and the Taiwan strand are new to the programme this cycle, backed by fresh partnerships with the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature respectively.

An "emerging translator" is defined by the NCW as someone who has published no more than one full-length work of literary translation — a threshold designed to catch talent at the very start of a professional career. The mentorships are open to applicants based anywhere in the world, with one exception: the Languages of India strand is restricted to India-based translators who have not received a Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship in the past five years and who agree to attend London Book Fair.

Each mentee receives an £800 stipend and one year's membership in the Society of Authors/Translators Association, the UK's main professional body for translators. The mentoring period runs from October 2026 to March 2027. Along the way, participants join training weekends, industry events including International Translation Day and London Book Fair, and a final digital showcase.

Applications are free to submit. The deadline is 24 August at 11:59pm BST.

What gives the programme its reach is the track record of its alumni. Nichola Smalley, a former mentee, won the 2021 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize for her translation of Andrzej Tichý's Wretchedness and was longlisted twice for the International Booker Prize. Reuben Woolley's translation of Andrey Kurkov's Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv was longlisted for the International Booker. Sophie Hughes was shortlisted for the prize in 2019 for The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán and again in 2020 for Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor.

Those are the prize lines. The quieter accomplishment is the pipeline itself: 150 people who have passed through a Norwich-based scheme and gone on to bring books written in other languages onto English-language shelves — the same shelves, in spirit, that a public library borrower reaches for free.