Humanities in Translation (HiT) Prize
Funded by Northwestern's Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and Northwestern University Press
The goal of the Humanities in Translation (HiT) prize is to encourage new translations of important literary and scholarly works from around the world, particularly from non-Western and less commonly translated languages. The prize aims to bring greater international attention to such works from across the humanities and to reaffirm the scholarly value of the craft of translation itself.
The HiT Prize will be awarded annually to a previously unpublished translation that expands literary canons, that will potentially inspire future scholarly work, and that can appeal to readers both outside and within academia, including undergraduate students.
We are also keen to promote works that will help introduce a global audience to underrepresented and experimental voices from marginalized communities and under-translated languages. Previous winners have translated from Arabic, Hindi, Catalan, Provencal, Turkish, North African French, and, most recently, Indonesian (Bahasa). The prize is judged by a rotating committee of Northwestern faculty in literature, the humanities, and the writing program.
The winner will receive a total cash prize of $5,000 ($1,000 at the announcement of the initial award, followed by $2,000 on submission of the completed translation to the Publisher in acceptable form, and $2,000 on publication) as well as a commitment from Northwestern University Press to publish the finished work. The work submitted for consideration must not be under contract elsewhere.
The 2027-2028 HiT Prize competition will open for submissions in Fall 2026.