Issue 14 — May 2005

Culture 2000 and the Roma around Europe

The last round of the EU Culture 2000 program brought very good news for Next Page and the Roma people around Europe. Our application for the 3-year Romani Library project was successful and will be funded by the program!

The project focuses on the selection, translation, publication, distribution and promotion of significant works of contemporary Romani literature under the common banner Romani Library. The multilingual publishing program consists of a total of 22 volumes, 4 in each of the following languages: German, Romanian, Hungarian and Czech, 6 in Romani, and a web publication of Romani editions with samples of selected titles in English and Swedish.

Congratulations to our Romani program coordinator, Sofiya Zahova, for this incredible success! More news on the project to come in subsequent issues of this newsletter.

South-South tender announcement

Next Page is pleased to announce opening of the first South-South Translations grant call. The South-South Translations initiative seeks to counter-weigh the historic pattern of information flows that move predominantly in one direction - from the rich “core” countries to the "periphery" of poorer countries in the East and South. In recognition of the fact that “Southern” countries who have linguistic, historic, and cultural ties to the Arab world, have much to contribute to the body of available translations, Next Page will support publishing and translation of titles in the social sciences and humanities from Turkey, Iran and India into Arabic.

The first round which supports translation of titles from Turkey and Iran is now open to publishers from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria with priority to be given to applications which include cooperation amongst publishers. Interested publishers should refer to the guidelines and recommended title lists posted on our web-site (www.npage.org) and submit the application form via e-mail to the project coordinator, Natasha Mullins, (nmullins@npage.org) by July 15, 2005.

Please stay posted for details on the second round of grant-giving for titles from India which will be opened at the end of the summer.

Annual report 2004

Our 2004 annual report is ready and can be downloaded here.

If you want to get a printed version of it, please, write to Maria Velichkova at mvelichkova@npage.org

New membership

After a successful application process, in April this year Next Page Foundation became a guest member of the European Foundations Center (EFC). As an independent international association, the European Foundation Centre (EFC) is the gathering point for independent funders active in and with Europe. The EFC today serves a core membership of more than 200 members, associates and subscribers; 350 community philanthropy initiatives; as well as a further 50,000 organisations linked through a network of 58 information and support centres worldwide.

New books

Suzana Tratnik, My Name is Damian (Jmenuju se Damian), transl. from Slovenian by Alena Samonilova (One Woman Press, Prague, 2005) supported by the East Translates East Publications Project.

This is a story of a 19 year old who undertakes a quest for her / his gender identity. The novel develops as an anti-Bildungsroman, where all rubrics of formation are impeded by various mechanisms of “institutionalizing” the otherness – help groups, psychologists, gay and lesbian communities, etc. As Varja Velikonja claims, “Damian can happen to anyone of us. At any age. At any time. At any life period.” It is a story of an outsider who is brave enough to oppose the social hypocrisy and claim the right to be different. The translation and publication of such a novel is a step towards the “unfreezing” of this taboo topic and opening it for public debate.