The Czech Republic offers grants for the translation of Czech literature

Following the announcement that the Czech Republic will be the Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2026, the Czech Ministry of Culture has introduced grants to support the publication and promotion of Czech literature abroad. This initiative aims to provide assistance for the publication of Czech prose, poetry, drama, essays, comics, and children’s literature internationally. In total, the grant can cover up to 70% of the total cost of publishing.

Publishers, agents, translators, and even magazines are eligible to apply for these grants.

Publishers can apply for funding for:

• translation costs (up to 50% of the total cost of publishing)
• graphic design, typesetting and printing costs (up to 50% of the total cost of publishing)
• copyright costs (up to 15% of the total cost of publishing)
• promotion costs (up to 25% of the total cost of publishing)

Publishers, agents and translators can apply for funding for:

the translation of an excerpt of between 10–25 standard pages of text (a standard page is 1800 characters with spaces)

Magazines can apply for funding for:

publishing costs of an issue where at least 50% of the total content is dedicated to original Czech literature.

The applications should be submitted not later than 15th of May for books and excerpts to be published in the same year and up to 15th November for books and excerpts to be published in the following year after the application is submitted.

Martin Krafl, the head coordinator at the Czech Literary Center, who is leading the institution’s preparations for Frankfurt, told Publishing Perspectives: “Many guests of honor are focused on translations into German, and of course we’ll also want to have as many of them as possible. But in Czechia’s case, there will also be 20 to 26 translations of Czech books into other languages, such as English, Spanish, and French.”

The Czech Republic is undergoing a transformation in its cultural policy, aiming to position Prague as the focal point of the Central and Eastern European book markets. In line with this initiative, the Prague Book Fair has introduced a fellowship program. This program offers a two-day professional agenda designed for publishers and experts in the book publishing industry from Central and Eastern Europe.

The application for the grants could be found here