Next Page Foundation Receives Gerardo de Cremona Award for the Promotion of Translation in the Mediterranean

Next Page Foundation is happy and honored to be among the first laureates of the Gerardo de Cremona Award for the Promotion of Translation in the Mediterranean. The Foundation was bestowed the award because of the longstanding efforts to study and support the translation flows of contemporary literature between European languages and Arabic. Over the years, the related initiatives were made possible thanks to the support of Open Society Institute and the cooperation of Anna Lindh Foundation, European Cultural Foundation, Transeuropéennes and other international organizations.

The award was launched in 2015 by the School of Translators of Toledo (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, and the City Council of Cremona (Italy), with the aim to honor annually the extensive career and significant contributions in the field of translation (practice, teaching, critiques, research, and reflection) of one individual and one institution from a country in the north and another country in the south of the Mediterranean.

The Award Ceremony took place on November 11, 2015 in Teatro de Rojas (Toledo, Spain) in the presence of the members of the award’s committee Miguel Ángel Moratinos - former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Gianluca Galimberti - Mayor of Cremona (Italy), Fátima Guadamillas - Vice Rector of International Relations of UCLM, Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada - Director of the Toledo School of Translators within UCLM, and other prominent figures.

Next Page Foundation’s contribution was acknowledged once again in the closing words of the Spanish former Foreign Minister, Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos. Next Page Foundation’s director Yana Genova thanked the award organizers for having recognized the foundation’s contribution and asserted that the prize gives Next Page a new impetus to continue its work in the Euro-Med area.

Next Page Foundation shares the award with the translators Malika Embarek (Spain) and Saleh Almani (Syria), and the School of Translation and Intepreting at the St. Joseph University of Beirut (Lebanon).

The patron of the award – Gerardo de Cremona (c. 1114 – 1187), was an Italian philosopher whose search for Greco-Latin and Arabic knowledge, placed at the libraries of Al-Andalus, led to Toledo, where he devoted himself to the study and translation. His more than 70 translations of works about medicine, astronomy, mathematics, or philosophy turned him into the paradigm of the translation movement that made possible the transfer of Greek, Arabic, Indian, and Persian cultures from the East to the West.