Last weekend, as part of our celebrations at Edinburgh International Book Festival marking one year of the Conference, the British Council announced £5000 worth of grants to writers who have participated in the project, for work related to either the Conference themes or the countries it has visited.

The writers receiving grants of £1000 each are:

Selma Dabbagh (participated in EWWC Jaipur) to support the writing of her second novel, ‘We Are Here Now.’

Anjali Joseph (participated in EWWC Cape Town) for a writing project entitled “Does Not Accurately Represent National Boundaries?” which will look at how established and emerging writers in the northeast of India see their writing in the context of a national literature

Sindiwe Magona (participated in EWWC Cape Town)  to explore the context of A National Literature in South Africa by collecting and writing thirteen folktales, from the thirteen official languages of South Africa, and having those stories translated into all those thirteen languages

Preeta Samarasan (participated in EWWC Edinburgh) who will use the grant to finance research for a second novel chronicling the life of a man whose father founds a pan-religious/utopian movement in Malaysia in 1969

Clare Wigfall (participated in EWWC Berlin) to help fund a research trip to Penang, Malaysia in connection with her next novel set in early 20th-century British Malaya.

Congratulations to all the successful applicants.