Translation House Looren supports professional literary translators through a number of grants, honouring outstanding translation achievements. All grants are tied to a residency at either Translation House Looren or Château de Lavigny (Canton of Vaud).
The Looren Excellence Grants are aimed at translators of works written in Switzerland at any time in history. Alongside writers with Swiss nationality, these also include anyone living and working in Switzerland on a long-term basis.
For the purpose of linguistic diversity, not only German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romansh are welcome as source and target languages, but all languages. With support from the Max Geilinger Foundation, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the S. Fischer Foundation and the Fondation Jan Michalski, we award a total of six translation grants a year, each for 4000 CHF. Every grant is tied to a one-month residency at Translation House Looren. Travel costs are reimbursed.
Three of our six grants have particular significance. With the Regula Renschler Excellence Grant, the Translation House Looren Association honours the eponymous translator and journalist on whose suggestion Translation House Looren was founded in 2005. The Carl Holenstein Excellence Grant is funded by the S. Fischer Foundation in memory of the Swiss journalist of the same name, who was a member of the foundation’s executive committee. With the support of the Max Geilinger Foundation, we award the Max Geilinger Excellence Grant with the aim of encouraging exchange between Switzerland and the Anglophone world.
Call for applications 2026
Looren and Max Geilinger Excellence Grants 2025
The Looren Excellence Grants were awarded to:
Sandra Tamele with Sabina Zanini's novel A una voce (Italian > Portuguese)
Sergej Moreino with Kurt Marti's poetry collection Hannis Äpfel (German > Latvian and Russian, bilingual edition)
Austėja Merkevičiūtė with Gerhard Meier's Amrainer Tetralogie (German > Lithuanian)
Thi Tuoi Nguyen with Joël Dicker's novel Un animal sauvage (French > Vietnamese) – Regula Renschler Excellence Grant
Tess Lewis with Judith Keller's Wilde Manöver (German > English) – Max Geilinger Excellence Grant
In partnership with the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation, Translation House Looren offers four one-month residency grants at the Château de Lavigny in the Canton of Vaud. They are aimed at translators from or into French and worth CHF 1,500 each. Each residency will close with a literary soirée to which we will invite partners and guests from the area. The Château de Lavigny has a long tradition of supporting literature. It is a hub of creative activity and international exchange, located in an idyllic landscape.This new programme sees Translation House Looren strengthening its collaboration with French-speaking Switzerland.
In 2025, the residency Looren à Lavigny will take place in fall. Residency dates: 16 September to 13 October 2025.
The grants Looren à Lavigny 2025 were awarded to:
Milena Adam (Germany) – French > German: Rebecca Lighieri (France), Le Club des enfants perdus
Lina Bader (Syria) – French > Arabic: Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe), Pays mêlé
Elena Balzamo (France) – Russian > French: Piotr Viazemski (Russia), Vieux carnets
Longge Jin (China) – French > Chinese: Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (Switzerland), Aline and Derborence
The Zurich James Joyce Foundation and Translation House Looren have awarded an annual residency grant since 2015. Translators into all target languages working on a current translation project of a work by James Joyce can apply for the grant.
Applicants must have prior knowledge of Joyce scholarship and publications in this field (articles or translations). The residency grant amounts to 1,500 CHF. The residency at Translation House Looren lasts one month. A workplace is available at the Zurich James Joyce Foundation.
Joyce Scholarship and Looren Residency 2025: Application
The application deadline has expired.
Grants for translators of Slovak literature
Applications are open all year round.
With the aim of helping to raise the profile of translated Slovak literature, Translation House Looren’s Štefan and Viera Frühauf Fund is offering stays at the house for translators of Slovak literature into German, French, Italian, Rhaeto-Romanic or other non-Slavic languages.
The following conditions apply:
To process your application, we need:
A stay of between one week and one month is possible at any point in the year, subject to availability. Financial support of 50 CHF per day will be paid for a maximum of 30 days; translators pay the costs of travel and insurance.
Please contact: Zorka Ciklaminy, +41 43 843 12 42, e-mail: zorka.ciklaminy@looren.net
Group residency: The Looren América Latina programme offers an annual group residency for Latin American translators. It is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia South America and the Mexican Secretariat of Culture, and aims to act as an exchange platform for projects.
