The Literary Mentorship
Applications
for class of 2025 are now closed
South Asia Speaks 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.
The South Asia Speaks Foundation and Reportagen magazine are pleased to announce the South Asia Speaks x Reportagen Fellowship 2025. The fellowship offers emerging writers from South Asia the opportunity to develop impactful non-fiction narratives for publication in the German-language magazine Reportagen.
Applications open from 1 October 2024 to 31 October 2024​​
Our readers love stories behind the news, far removed from the media mainstream. That's why we look forward to discovering surprising stories from new voices in South Asia.​
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Daniel Puntas Bernet, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Reportagen
Journalism and the public only stand to gain when reporters from diverse backgrounds are empowered to work freely. This fellowship will encourage talented writers to tell nuanced stories, and give them the editorial support they deserve.​
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Rahul Bhatia, Director,
South Asia Speaks Foundation x Reportagen Fellowship​​​​​​
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 20 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.
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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 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 is conducted online and applicants are requested to mention specific accommodations they might require.
Applications for the 5th edition of South Asia Speaks open in September 2024
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Mentors
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