The Commission organises a debate in Brussels on translation, "the language of Europe"
The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and the Commissioner for multilingualism, Leonard Orban, have invited 16 well known European translators, writers, publishers and literary critics from different countries to a Lunch-Debate on translation and culture, to be held on 6 November in Brussels. The Lunch-Debate will be preceded by a half-day discussion among the participants focusing on translation as a key to dialogue between cultures; an intellectual bridge between small and big languages; and translation in all its forms and actors.
"I see translation as one of the expressions of multilingualism", said Commissioner Orban, "A society is multilingual not only when its citizens can speak different languages, but also when its languages maintain a constant communication through translation. Translation is indeed a continuous negotiation between the author, the translator and the reader. In Europe, we know this only too well, negotiation being the very essence of our staying together."
The participants invited to the Lunch-Debate on Culture and Translation are :
JACQUES DE DECKER (Belgium)
MYRIAM DIOCARETZ (The Netherlands)
BERNARD FOCCROULLE (Belgium
FRANCOIS JULLIEN (France)
JENS CHRISTIAN GRØNDAHL (Denmark)
MARTIN SOLOTRUK (Slovakia)
RADU MIHAILEANU (Romania)
CHRISTINE JORDIS (France)
VASCO GRAÇA MOURA (Portugal)
HUGO DE GREEF (Belgium)
SERGIO PENT (Italy)
ANNETTE WASSERMAN (Germany)
NICOLAE MANOLESCU (Romania)
JAVIER SANTILLAN (Spain)
ERIC LANE (United Kingdom)
MICHAEL ZEEMAN (The Netherlands)
This Lunch-debate is the first step of a two-fold initiative that will be completed in April 2009 with a wider conference on literary translation. The aim is to enhance the role of literary translation in particular and of translation in general. As Umberto Eco said "Translation is the language of Europe". Literary translation is a transversal topic. It concerns the writers and the publishers as well as the critics and it plays a role in other sectors of culture such as cinema and music. Translation has an importance also in language learning, in migrant workers' integration, in the preservation of identity, in the promotion of literacy, in mother-tongue competence and in new technologies.
Background
Translation is one essential aspect of the new strategy for multilingualism launched by the Commission with its recent Communication:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/news/news2853_en.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/eu-language-policy/index_en.htm
The Community programme "Culture" (2007-2013) provides support for literary translation from one European language into another European language, with the aim of enhancing the knowledge of the literature and the literary heritage of fellow European countries, and thus contributing to enhancing multilingualism policies as well as furthering intercultural dialogue.
Eligible applicants include private or public publishing houses or publishing groups who intend to publish a work of fiction (novels, tales, short stories, theatre plays, poetry or comics).
Several thousand books have already been translated with grants from the previous Community programmes in the field of literary translations, in particular Culture 2000, and this action continues under the new Culture programme (2007-2013). Editors publishing in less widely spoken languages have been particularly active users of this action every year.
http://ec.europa.eu/culture/our-programmes-and-actions/doc509_en.htm
Published on: 2008-11-05
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