Events

Between December 2011 and March 2012, various public and professional events will be organised by the members of the PETRA platform. These events are aimed at raising the profile of literary translation and translators. The major first public event took place in Brussels.

02.12.2011 - 20:00 - Brussels (Flagey)

GRAND HOTEL EUROPA – A Tribute to Literary Translators

Alberto Manguel, Michael Cunningham, Dubravka Ugrešić, and translators from all over Europe. With a special focus on Fernando Pessoa.

This extraordinary evening was meant to be a tribute to those individuals in the literary field who are used to working behind the scenes. Grand Hotel Europa presented literary translation in all its different aspects: a great artistic adventure, a creative challenge and a strenuous but very necessary task. 

The evening was in two parts:

1st part - 20:00 > 20:45 - à la carte

 -The Seneffe secret (FR)

Françoise Wuilmart (director of the Seneffe European Literary Translators College), unveiled Seneffe’s unique formula with the help of illustrations and films. Thanks to the College and the residencies it offers a hundred or so literary translators from all over the world have discovered a large number of Belgian authors. The Belgian writer Caroline Lamarche, who has often been invited with other authors accompanied by their translators, testified to this. She considers Seneffe an example of  “best practice”.

  -Translating Cultures (EN)

Dubravka Ugrešić (a novelist who left the former Yugoslavia in 1993), Alexandra Büchler (director of Literature across Frontiers) and Luk Van Haute (Flemish translator of Haruki Murakami) discussed the task of the translator as going beyond the simple formulation of words and phrases in another language. Or: how can another world, another culture be told and translated? Moderator: Johan De Boose.

  -Je bereikt me in vertaling (NL and other languages)

Katelijne De Vuyst, Lisette Keustermans, Eric Metz, Frank Olbrechts and Bart Vonck of the Passa Porta translators’ collective have translated an anthology of poems by Adonis, Eugénio de Andrade, Bo Carpelan, Petr Borkovec, Véronique Bergen and Charis Vlavianos. These poems that make up the new anthology “Je bereikt me in vertaling” (Vrijdag Editions) were presented to the public in the course of this exceptional evening in the presence of Charis Vlavianos.

  -James Joyce read in several languages (FR, NL, EN, ...)

It is said of James Joyce that he was unreadable and untranslatable. Not everyone shares that view.

Eight readers read, each in their mother tongue, a fabulous extract from a monologue by Leopold Bloom, the main character in Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses.

  -De literaire vertaler in Vlaanderen (NL)

It seems - a study has shown - that the Dutch-speaking market has proportionately fewer Flemish than Netherlands translators. That is why the Flemish Society of Authors charted the economic situation of Flemish literary translators.

  -Literary translation mini-fair

Information stands, presentations, contributions from the Liseuses Fabuleuses, and a literary café.

2nd part - 21:00 > 22:30

Alberto Manguel, Michael Cunningham, Dubravka Ugrešić...

The novelist, essayist and citizen of the world Alberto Manguel  discussed the curious ménage à trois formed by the writer, the translator and the reader.

The American author Michael Cunningham talked about his work and his admiration for good literary translators.

Dubravka Ugrešić (Former Yugoslavia) focused on the importance of literary translation for minority languages.

Poems by Fernando Pessoa were recited in 12 languages and an excerpt from The Book of Disquiet was translated live by 3 translators.

Eva Cox translated the incomprehensible. Then some tens of translators present in the room emerged from the shadows to music by the Rony Verbiest Trio.

Moderator: Annelies Beck