Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation

We are proud to announce the opening of the fourth Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation. This annual jury-selected prize awards a talented literary translator with the publication of their book to bring a work in a South Asian language to English. The 2026 prize will focus on retranslations of literary work written after 1930 in any South Asian language. Our hope is to identify previously translated literature that may have been overlooked in the past and bring fresh life to them with new translations. Despite the wealth and significance of literary work in South Asian languages, there have traditionally been limited investments associated with translating that canon into English.

Deadline: March 1st, 2026

Launched in July 2022, the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation is an annual effort to remedy the stark disparities in literary translation worldwide and support compelling storytellers from the Indian Subcontinent by raising their visibility in the US. The groundbreaking prize, sponsored by Armory Square Ventures, is the first of its kind worldwide.

All shortlisted translators will have an excerpt from their work published at Words Without Borders, the premier online magazine for literature in translation. The winning work will be published by Open Letter Books.

The 2025 winner was Mehdi Khawaja for his translation of the late Akhtar Mohiuddin’s To Each Their Own Hell, from Kashmiri.

The 2024 winner was Sana R. Chaudry for her translation from Urdu of Pakistani feminist icon Fahmida Riaz’s final novel, Qila-e-Faramoshi (Fortress of the Forgotten Ones). Her book is slated for release by Open Letter Books in the coming months.

To date, translators recognized by the prize shortlist have worked in Angika, Assamese, Bangla, Hindi, Tamil, and Urdu, highlighting the breadth of cultural diversity across South Asia.

The complete list of judges is below (in alphabetical order):

Deena Chalabi: recognized curator whose work explores relationships between individual expression, critical thought, and public imagination. Literary work published in Bidoun, The New Inquiry and the Journal of Visual Culture.

V.V. Ganeshananthan: board member of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, NEA grant recipient, winner of the Carol Shields Prize, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Jason Grunebaum (Jury Chair), translator from Hindi: shortlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, winner of an NEA Literature Fellowship in Translation, winner of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant.

Daisy Rockwell, translator from Hindi and Urdu: 2022 International Booker winner, winner of MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize.

Pia Sawhney, Partner, Armory Square Ventures: Previous winner of the Amnesty International DOEN Award for Human Rights for work as a documentary filmmaker and journalist.

Arunava Sinha, translator from Bangla: Winner of 2022 Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award, twice winner of Crossword translation award, shortlisted for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, shortlisted for the National Translation Award.

Padma Viswanathan, translator from Portuguese: NEA grant recipient, shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, PEN Center USA Fiction Prize finalist, shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.

For more details: 2025 Submissions Call Announcement — Armory Square Ventures