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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
English PEN has announced the latest recipients of PEN Translates award, along with increased opportunities for publishers seeking funding.
In future UK publishers with a turnover of under £500,000 p.a. will be eligible to apply for 100% of the translation costs of a book acquired from another language. Previously, only publishers with a turnover of under £100,000 p.a. were able to apply for this maximum level of grant. All other publishers could apply for up to 75% of a book’s translation costs. [,,,]
Laboral Kutxa and the Etxepare Basque Institute have launched a prize for a published translation of a literary work originally written in Basque. The prize of €4,000 will reward the quality of the translation itself and the publisher’s promotional strategy. The prize will thus be divided equally between the publisher and the translator.
In addition, the prize-winners will receive a grant of up to €2,000 to attend the award ceremony and to continue promoting the book in the country of publication (presentations, events, publicity campaigns, media interviews etc.). […]
The Art Foundation NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia) in cooperation with the EUK Straelen (‘European Translators’ College’) have given this year’s Straelen Lifetime Achievement Translation Award to the Dutch literary translator Gerrit Bussink for his translations from German.
Bussink, who has been translating since 1972, enables the Dutch reception of important German-language authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland – authors like Martin Walser, Thomas Bernhard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Christa Wolf, Siegfried Lenz and Peter Handke. […]
The Annual General Assembly of CEATL’s national representatives, organised by the Italian associations STradE and A.I.T.I., was held in Milan between 3-6 June. […]
The Brockway Prize, a biennial prize for poetry translations from the Dutch, has been awarded to Ard Posthuma. The prize was established by the Dutch Foundation for Literature and is worth 5,000 euro. It will be presented on 12 June during the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam.
Literary translator Ard Posthuma (b. 1942) attended universities in Lausanne, Munich and Basel before embarking on a career as editor and lecturer. Since 1989 he has translated Dutch, Frisian and Flemish poetry into German, with publications including anthologies of the work of Martinus Nijhoff, Cees Nooteboom, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Leonard Nolens and Tsjêbbe Hettinga. His translations ‘in the other direction’, of work by authors including Ingo Schulz and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust), have also been highly praised. […]
With the aim of contributing to strengthening translation movement between the countries on the north shore and those on the south shore of the Mediterranean, the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), King Abdulaziz Foundation for Human Sciences and Islamic Studies (Casablanca, Morocco), ‘MED 21 Programme – Network Awards for promotion of Excellence and Cooperation in the Mediterranean’, the School of Translators of Toledo (Spain), and the City Council of Cremona (Italy) have agreed to create a translation award entitled the Gerardo de Cremona Award for the Promotion of Translation in the Mediterranean. [,…]
