Sep 9, 2015 | World
In a press release dated 2 February 2015, CEATL sounded the alarm on the fact that the publishing industry was part of the TTIP negotiating mandate, which might pose a threat to policies of protection and promotion of the book sector, notably to fixed book prices.
CEATL therefore welcomes the recommendations to the European Commission adopted on 8 July 2015 by the European Parliament regarding the TTIP, recommending to confirm that financial support to cultural industries and fixed book price systems will not be challenged by the obligations under the TTIP agreement. […]
Aug 21, 2015 | United Kingdom
The Booker Prize Foundation has announced that from 2016 the Man Booker International Prize will evolve, to encourage more publishing and reading of quality fiction in translation. From next year the prize, which will join forces with the current Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, will be awarded annually on the basis of a single book translated into English and published in the UK rather than every two years for a body of work, as has been the case until now. The move is designed to highlight the importance of translated fiction, with eight out of ten of the finalists for the award having been originally published in a language other than English. […]
Aug 5, 2015 | Netherlands
The Europese Literatuurprijs [European Literature Award] for 2015 has been awarded to Een handvol sneeuw (Aller Tage Abend) by German writer Jenny Erpenbeck in the Dutch translation by Elly Schippers.
The Europese Literatuurprijs is awarded to a novel written in any of the member languages of the Council of Europe and to the Dutch translation of that novel. It has been established by the Academic Cultural Centre SPUI25, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, the weekly De Groene Amsterdammer and bookshop Athenaeum Boekhandel in an effort to celebrate Europe’s literary diversity and cultural richness. […]
Jul 30, 2015 | World
Literary translators don’t exist. That’s what you’d often think from looking at the press, book reviews, book covers… You’d think books are magically written in all sorts of languages at the drop of a hat. Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in English, but they are read all over the world in Russian, German, Swedish, Catalan… So literary translators do exist. Help make us visible!
CEATL, the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (www.ceatl.eu), is calling on amateur photographers to create sparky and clever photographs reflecting the existence and importance of literary translators, their challenges, and their role in literature. Any topic can be used, as long as it is in some way related to literary translation. One digital picture per participant will be accepted, and a 200 Euro voucher for dinner and books will be awarded for the winner before International Translation Day, 30 September 2015. […]
Jul 21, 2015 | France, Germany
The 2015 Prix lémanique for translation will be awarded to the translators Holger Fock and Jean-Yves Masson.
In addition to being President of CEATL Holger Fock is a German translator of literary fiction and non-fiction from French and has translated authors such as Patrick Deville, Andreï Makine, André Breton, Tahar Djaout and Théophile Gautier.
Jean-Yves Masson has translated into French work by many German-language writers, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George, Eduard Mörike, Arthur Schnitzler, Ödön von Horváth and Heinrich von Kleist. […]
Jul 18, 2015 | Slovenia
This year’s Pranger Festival, a gathering of poets, critics and translators of poetry, was held from 30 June to 5 July in the towns of Rogaška Slatina, Šmarje pri Jelšah and Ljubljana in Slovenia.
Each year at the Festival three critics each choose three collections of Slovene poetry published in the previous year that they consider to be worth debating. Their choices can be either because of what they consider to be positive or a negative aspects of the collections or for other aesthetic or philosophical reasons. The authors of the nine selected collections of poetry and the translators of the books are invited to participate in the debates. The organisers and participants are particularly concerned to go beyond the realm of ‘pillorying’ (pranger in Slovene means ‘pillory’) and to cultivate a high level of respectful criticism. During the this year’s festival, several debates about poetry and related subjects, along with the selected books of poetry and some translations of them into Spanish were discussed. […]
Jul 16, 2015 | Slovenia
The Society of Slovene Literary Translators has named affiliate professor and Slavic librarian Michael Biggins as the recipient of the Janko Lavrin Prize. The prize is awarded annually to honour an individual who has made a significant contribution to the translation of Slovene literature internationally. Michael Biggins is the English translator of more than fifteen major, book-length works of 20th- and 21st-century Slovene literature, including texts by Drago Jančar, Tomaž Šalamun and Vladimir Bartol. […]
Jul 15, 2015 | Europe
While Julia Reda called for a hasty harmonisation and the inconsiderate broadening of exceptions that would all have been made mandatory (thus endangering both the book industry and the rights of authors on their work), the European Parliament consistently calls for the respect of cultural diversity, of national circumstances and of the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity, as well as for targeted and balanced measures based on careful impact studies and taking into account the need to remunerate or compensate creators for any use of their works. […]
Jul 15, 2015 | Europe
Following the vote of the European Parliament on the report on the implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC on copyright (also known as the “Reda report”), CEATL (European Counsil of Literary Translators’ Associations):
* welcomes the fact the European Parliament has profoundly revised the draft report initially prepared by the Pirate deputy Julia Reda, both in its spirit and in the detail of the proposed reforms (see on our website the comparative chart for the main provisions touching the book industry). In fact, the final report forcefully and repeatedly reasserts the importance of copyright as a source of economic wealth for Europe and as the tangible means of ensuring that creators are remunerated and that the creative process is funded. […]
Jul 5, 2015 | Germany
On 15 June 2015 German translator, author and actor Harry Rowohlt died.
Rowohlt established his reputation as a translator with Pu der Bär, his insightful and humorous translation of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. Many literary translations would follow. In total he translated over 200 English works into German, among them books by Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Frank McCourt, Robert Crumb, David Sedaris, James Joyce and Leonard Cohen. […]
Jul 2, 2015 | Germany
The 2015 Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Translation has been awarded to Mirjam Pressler for her German translation of Amos Oz’s novel Judas. The Jury commended her work for its natural tonality and for conveying an intimate atmosphere against the backdrop of momentous socio-political events. Mirjam Pressler is an author in her own right, as well as being a translator of Hebrew, English and Dutch literature. She is a winner of the German Children’s Literature Award, the Carl-Zuckmayr Medal and the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal. […]
Jun 30, 2015 | Austria
The 2014 Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation goes to Alena Bláhová from the Czech Republic and to Erich Hackl, a translator from Spanish and a well-known Austrian writer.
Alena Bláhová is an expert on the translation of Jewish literature and has also made an important contribution to the reception of Rainer Maria Rilke in her country. Many of her translations, including a novel by Erich Hackl, are regarded as ideal representations of Austrian culture and the common heritage of the two neighbouring countries. […]
