Issue 53 - December 2008

Wishing you a relaxing festive season with a good read and... a wonderful New Year!

New books published

Bora Ćosić, The Journey to Alaska, translation into Polish by Danuta Cirlić-Straszyńska (Czarne - Wołowiec 2008), supported by the East Translates East Program

This is the newest book by one of the most acclaimed Serbian writers and poets - Bora Ćosić, who lives in exile in Berlin since 1997. The book is written as a memoir about the author’s trip to former Yugoslavia in 2005. In the very first pages Ćosić claims to serve no political or ideological doctrines, and declares neutrality. For him Alaska is a metaphor of the distant and unknown land of one’s deserted past: “As I today, after many years, start off on a journey to the land of my birth, I feel as if I were leaving for Africa or Alaska. I am leaving for the unknown lands of my past without actually knowing why.” Facing, however, the remnants of this past, the war ruins, the cities, buried under piles of rubbish, of “wasted human material”, the author gives up his neutral intonation and turns his narrative into a highly intensive and emotional reflection on the monstrosity of war and the limits of humanity.

The book’s Polish translation by Czarne was published just in time for the Balkan literary festival that was held in October and – alongside with Ćosić - featured other former Yugoslav authors such as Dubravka Ugresic, Nenad Velickovic, David Albahari, Marija Knezevic, Mileta Prodanocic and others.

Cultural Policy, a collection of texts, translation into Estonian by Johanna Ross (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in cooperation with Estonian Language Foundation -Talinn 2008), supported by the Cultural Policy Translation Project

The reader, designed by and implemented with the help of experts from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater and the Estonian Language Foundation, encompasses seminal texts on cultural policies in a large variety of aspects. It includes a historic study of government arts policies from Antiquity to the present days, offers an international perspective and contemplates on the multi-facet relations of culture and policies, art, economy, heritage, tradition, public purposes, private support, citizenship, etc.

The book as all the publications within the project is envisaged to reach renewable number of students and researchers in cultural policy and cultural management, professionals and experts of independent and decision-making level, as well as to help for overcoming shortages of up to date literature and specialized vocabulary in this field in the languages of translation.