The Literary Mentorship
Apply for
Class of 2025
The South Asia Speaks Foundation offers literary mentorship to outstanding emerging writers living in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal.
Our goal is to cultivate excellence, dismantle the biases that exist in the publishing industry, and build a critical mass of literary voices that represent South Asia.
We are grateful to the Hawthornden Foundation for supporting our work
We match South Asia-based writers who have applied for support to produce a major work with published authors from around the world. We support fiction, nonfiction and reportage, translation and poetry. In 2021, we introduced a fellowship dedicated to the study of the Partition. In 2023, we introduced Beyond Ability for writers who identify as a person with a disability.
Since 2021, South Asia Speaks fellows have published seven books with major publishing houses. They have gone on to The Iowa Writers' Workshop and Logan Nonfiction Program, and won awards from The New India Foundation, International Women's Media Foundation, Elizabeth George Foundation, English PEN, and The American Literary Translators Association's Emerging Translator Mentorship Program.​
The application is very competitive. Every year we receive hundreds of applications for less than fellowships. Our ideal fellow is talented and driven with a track record of finishing a project. Since we are assembling a class, we are looking for fellows who will contribute to a collegial atmosphere and support one another.
​
The diversity of our fellows is reflected in the books they are working on, many of which are only published because of the support and visibility of our program. Topics include Muslim life in India, the Ahmadi community in Pakistan, a Dalit protest, love stories from Kashmir, short stories set in modern Dhaka, the secret life of birds, the Gorkha identity movement, a translation of Dalit literature into Marathi, the history of the Tibetan Diaspora, and much, much more.
Beyond Ability is a mentorship for disabled writers. The disability can be locomotor, visual, hearing, psychosocial or neurological in nature. Writers with learning disabilities are welcome as are writers with chronic illnesses and rare diseases that might not fall under the purview of 'disability' in their respective countries. Disabled writers who come from the intersections of marginalized caste, class. and gender identities are encouraged to apply. The mentorship will be conducted online and applicants are requested to mention any specific accommodations that they might require.
Applications for the 5th edition of South Asia Speaks open in September 2024
1352
Applications
31
98
04
Fellows
Mentors
years