Home > News

Matchmaking in Translation (PREVODADŽISANJE) in UKPS/ALTS
Matchmaking in Translation (PREVODADŽISANJE) in UKPS/ALTS
31 Oct, 2019
Tags: Serbia

Banner designed by Dragana Nikolić

BEPS, the Belgrade International Gathering of Literary Translators, was held for the 44th time on October 17th – 19th. In recent years, this event has mainly been oriented towards literary translators from regional languages (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin).

Aiming to use this opportunity to promote both translation and our culture, members of the event’s Organizing board decided to create another event within this one, called PREVODADŽISANJE (https://www NULL.facebook NULL.com/events/962755164076226/) (a play on words, meaning matchmaking in translation). The idea behind this project was to select 5 to 6 talented and published authors from Serbia whose works have never been translated into another language, and introduce them to our guest translators. In order to give everyone an equal opportunity, and avoid the classic form of book presentation, we decided to organize this encounter in the form of speed dating, where each author will have 5 minutes to present their book to one of the translators, and after the sound of the bell, translators would get up and move clockwise to the next table.

© Ksenija Vlatković

Over the summer, organizers contacted numerous publishing houses and asked them to recommend authors who would meet the criteria and be interested in such an event.

On October 19th, 6 authors from 6 different publishing houses presented their works (two collections of poems, three novels and a short story collection) to 10 literary translators, who could potentially translate their works into 8 different languages (Slovenian, French, Portuguese, Armenian, Albanian, Catalan, Italian and Russian). Both the authors and the visiting translators found the event very inspiring and successful, which encouraged the organizers to proceed with their plans to turn it into a yearly event, and consider expanding it to the entire region, encouraging literary translation from other similar regional languages.

Related news