From 8th until 11th June, the International Writers' and Translators' House hosted the annual meeting of the network of European centres for literary translation (RECIT). This meeting was particularly significant because for the first time in several years the union has invited new houses to join from Eastern and Central Europe. Apart from the Ventspils House, the translators' residence in Bulgaria was invited, and plans for collaboration with the Estonian translators' house were outlined.
The aim of the meeting in Ventspils was to coordinate the activities of the union, assess the Ventspils' House, and discuss mutual future projects. Parties agreed on the importance of a programme preparing directors and mentors for translation workshops. The project involves exchange between directors of various translation workshops in order to improve their skills in working with several languages at once, and designing workshops for translating a single author into several languages. It also oversees discussions on possible methods in translator training, and more regular meetings among mentors. The Ventspils House is so far the only residency to have initiated a translator mentoring programme teaching Latvian.
Several houses are instructing the translators on how to establish contact with publishers and literary editors by inviting publishers and editors for meetings and examining the reasons why some books are more attractive to the publishers than others. All houses emphasize the importance of attracting and training new translators, particularly through employing personal translation mentors.
The RECIT network includes centres offering residencies in the European College of Literary Translation of Seneffe (Belgium), the Literary Colloquium Berlin (Germany), association for the promotion of literary translations in Arles (France), the European Translators’ College in Straelen (Germany), Casa delle Traduzioni in Rome (Italy), Translators' houses in Hungary and Netherlands, the Translation House Looren (Switzerland), the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby (Sweden), and the British Centre for Literary Translation (United Kingdom).
Learn more about the residency at: www.ventspilshouse.lv; on Facebook “Starptautiskā Rakstnieku un tulkotāju māja”.
