Jan 7, 2018 | Czech Republic
Czech Centres and the Czech Literary Centre traditionally invite young translators from Czech to compete in translating a chosen piece of contemporary literature. Try your luck with Bomba★Funk by Karel Veselý to win several days in the Czech Republic filled with seminars and other programmes. Feedback from experts is guaranteed. […]
Jan 6, 2018 | Turkey
In July 2017, ten human rights defenders from various international organisations who were taking part in a routine training workshop on the island of Büyükada, Istanbul, were arrested. Two of them, İdil Eser and Özlem Dalkıran, also work as translators. Both are members of the Translators´ Association Turkey (Çevirmenler Birliği, ÇEVBİR). Eser, Dalkıran and six of their colleagues were detained for nearly four months before being charged and appearing in court. […]
Dec 28, 2017 | Austria
The program supports translations of canonical texts, contemporary key works in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies from Eastern to Western European languages or vice versa, or between two Eastern European languages. Special emphasis is put on translations of relevant works written by East European authors and/or female scholars. No applications for works of fiction and poetry are being accepted. […]
Dec 19, 2017 | United States
On 15 December the Authors Guild, the oldest and largest professional organization for writers in the United States, released results from a survey of U.S. literary translators. The survey, distributed online in April 2017 and conducted in collaboration with the American Literary Translators Association, the American Translators Association’s Literary Division, and the PEN America Translation Committee, collected information from 205 translators on payment, royalties, copyright, and various other aspects of the literary translation profession. […]
Dec 15, 2017 | Basque Country, Slovenia
Building on last year’s New Translators programmme, two representatives of EIZIE (Euskal Itzultzaile, Zuzentzaile eta Interpreteen Elkartea, the Association of Translators, Correctors and Interpreters of the Basque Language) travelled to Slovenia this year to take part in discussions about the spread of Basque culture and translation. […]
Dec 12, 2017 | Sweden
The Swedish Writers’ Union is advising translators in Sweden against entering into agreements with all publishing companies within the Bonnier Publishing Group, Sweden’s largest publisher. Eleven companies have been declared non grata by the Union.
This comes after the Bonnier Group introduced a new Draft Contract earlier this year, which is to be used by all its subsidiaries and which includes many changes for the worse for translators. […]
Dec 10, 2017 | Netherlands
The number of users of e-readers is increasing – a positive development, as it offers opportunities to bring a broader readership into contact with a diverse range of books. But it is also important to consider the negative consequences.
E-books are illegally downloaded and distributed on a large scale. As a result, writers and translators are increasingly missing out on revenue. To bring this issue to the attention of the public, the Auteursbond (the Dutch Association of Authors), with financial support from the Dutch collecting society Lira, made a short video. […]
Dec 9, 2017 | Belgium, Netherlands
In January 2018 the Vertalersvakschool Amsterdam (Amsterdam Academy for literary translation) will open an academy in Antwerp in cooperation with Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren (Flemish Literary Fund). The academy starts with a pilot of two trimesters and offers courses in translation from German, English or French literature into Dutch. Experienced literary translators will be the supervisors who teach the students the tricks of the trade and help them to find their way to literary publishers. […]
Dec 9, 2017 | World
There seems to be a commonly held belief (among translators, publishers, and readers alike) that the more books you translate, the faster you become. But often the opposite is true, because with experience many translators become more alert to linguistic subtleties and literary complexities. ¨…*
Dec 3, 2017 | Italy
It has been a busy autumn for the Italian Union of Literary Translators Strade.
Starting at the beginning of October, the association was one of the main co-operating partners of the Migrant Literatures Festival in Palermo, Sicily, which hosted a series of events under the title “Lost (and Found) in Translation”. A public meeting with representatives from the Italian Ministry of Culture, the association of independent publishers ODEI, the Municipality of Palermo and Strade opened the whole festival, by promoting the latter’s proposal to establish a State foundation supporting translation (as it is the case in many other countries). ¨…*
Nov 30, 2017 | France
At the recent Frankfurt Book Fair, the French president Emmanuel Macron paid homage to the translator’s profession, and announced the creation of a “real” prize in France for translation into French (Note: a number of well regarded translation prizes already exist in France). “Knowledge of language is knowledge of books, and such is the eminent role played by translators that I cannot speak here, before you, without paying them the homage we owe them, because translation is the first thing our diplomats do, indeed it is sometimes the heart of what they do. It involves avoiding misunderstandings, indeed sometimes avoiding little miscomprehensions, it’s about conveying. […]
Nov 29, 2017 | Denmark, Netherlands
The director Nitesh Anjaan has made a documentary about Mette Holm, who has been translating the work of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami into Danish for many years. This glimpse into Holm’s life follows her on a trip to Japan while working on the translation of Kaze no uta o kike (Hear the Wind Sing), the world-famous author’s debut novel. […]