Purpose/Activities

The EÜK is an international working and study centre for translators of fiction and scholarly literature on the arts and humanities. It promotes international cultural exchange through supporting the translation of literary and academic publications.

Eligible for working periods at EÜK: every literary translator who has published at least two major works and has been commissioned by a publisher to translate a book. The EÜK neither accepts nor contracts translation commissions.

Over 750 translators use the facilities every year and benefit from:

free accommodation in one of the 29 apartments for the time it takes them to complete a translation project

a library holding, at present, about 110,000 titles, including 25,000 reference books/dictionaries in 275 languages and dialects; 60,000 titles of world-literature fiction (most of them original and translated editions) and about 20,000 non-fiction titles as well as dictionary supplements for translators of fiction produced by some of them during their stay in Straelen.

Straelen Residency Grants are constantly funded by:

the German Translators' Fund

the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia

the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

the Robert Bosch Stiftung

the public-benefit association 'Perewest'

Applications to be sent directly to Straelen; all other grants are given by the institutions themselves.