© University of Kent - Contact | Feedback | Legal
The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T +44 (0)1227 764000
Charles Wallace India Trust Writing Fellowship at the University of Kent
The University of Kent is situated in a spacious landscaped campus overlooking the historic city of Canterbury and its medieval cathedral. The English department at Kent has been hosting Charles Wallace India Trust Writing Fellowships since 1991. Many of our Fellows have been writers at the start of their career who have subsequently gone on to build up significant and influential bodies of work in a wide variety of literary fields. Early recipients of the fellowship included Upamanyu Chatterjee, Mahesh Dattani and Smita Agarwal. More recently, we have had the pleasure of hosting, amongst others, Manju Kapur, Radhika Jha, Ruchir Joshi and Anjum Hasan. The Fellowship will normally cover all accommodation and living expenses for a period of residence lasting up to twelve weeks.
The Kent campus provides a stimulating and productive environment for writers to continue with or to initiate a substantial writing project. The CWIT Fellow will normally be located in a residential part of the campus in order to allow the peace and quiet necessary to their work. While their writing project will form the focus of their stay with us, we would also encourage Fellows to take advantage of the rich cultural life of the university and to interact with an English department that includes many world-class writers of novels, poetry and literary criticism. Along with our English and American Literature courses and our thriving Creative Writing programmes, the department hosts an interdisciplinary Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies which has long been recognised as a centre for excellence in research in postcolonial literatures. Kent was one of the first British universities to introduce the study of modern Indian literatures in English and in translation into the curriculum, and our current research environment includes postgraduate students working on diverse aspects of colonial and contemporary Indian literary production. Every week our Creative Writers Series brings in writers from around the UK for readings and discussions, offering a wonderful opportunity for Fellows to meet their contemporaries, as well as to contribute a reading of their own work to the series. And of course, we would also encourage CWIT Fellows to take advantage of our close proximity to London and its many cultural attractions.
For eligibility the candidate must:
- Be an Indian citizen, domiciled and resident
- Have completed university-level education in the field of literature and/or have between five and seven years of professional experience
- Have a clear proposal stating what they plan to do at the University of Kent and how they hope to use the experience on their return to India
- Have not been given a Charles Wallace India Trust Writing Fellowship grant within the previous five years
Applications for the fellowship will include the following:
- A clear proposal of what the candidate wants to achieve in coming to Kent and how they will use this in their work once they return to India
- Two references from referees who know your work very well
- Examples of your creative writing (which will not be returned)
- A full CV
Applications for the 2012 Fellowship will be accepted from now until October 30, 2011. The successful candidate will be informed at the end of December. The Fellow will normally be expected to take up their post at the University from January 2012. Applications should be sent by post to: Dr Alex Padamsee, School of English, Rutherford College Extension, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX. Any further enquiries can be made to Dr Padamsee at A.Padamsee@Kent.ac.uk