What is the Balkan Translations Collider project about? 

In early January 2021 Next Page Foundation launched the new Balkan Translations Collider Project in partnership with ARGH (Serbia), POETEKA (Albania), Sandorf (Croatia), Goten (North Macedonia), and the municipality of Podgorica.

The Collider will work to bolster cross-border literary networks and cooperation both within the Western Balkans, and – on a larger scale – with other European countries. Although literary translation is at the heart of the project, the act of translating and the translators are not the focus of the project.

Instead, the Collider draws attention to the infrastructure underlying the process of introducing a literary work in translation to a new audience.

This includes a vast array of networking and communicative systems made up of organizations, individual professionals, publishers, festivals, book fairs, and many more. Although these tend to stay in the shadow when thinking about what factors are key to translating literature, without them a translation would never take place at all.
 
In other words, the project focuses its efforts on the go-betweens, which in one way or another – often crucially – pave the way for a literary work to reach a new language audience through translation. A priority among those is given to literary managers, as the ones having the most opportunities to influence and steer the process.

Main activities
 
In its lifecycle the Collider will:
 

• Undertake data driven research to determine the state of literary translations from WB languages to other European languages to identify trends, analyze and produce policy recommendations to address the current needs of the sector.

• Organize academies for literary managers (in N. Macedonia and Albania) to develop skills and tackle together the current problems the literary professionals face when navigating the complex routes leading a WB literary work to reach a new readership.

• Select participants from the academies for ten one-week internship placements in other European literary organizations to strengthen ties, develop new partnerships, and receive first-hand knowledge about how similar organizations operate in other countries of interest.

 
Finally, the project will close with a special event at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2023, dedicated to the theme of the project. Apart from external experts who will speak at the event, the project team and its experts will present the project results, products, etc.

News
 

• International Academy on Literary Management and Translation Promotion

The Translations Collider Academy on Literary Management and Translation Promotion aims to explore ways to overcome the imbalances in the literary translation traffic in Europe. The Academy will will span across two five-day sessions. The first one took place between May 13 - May 18 2022 in Struga (North Macedonia). Read more about the first Academy session here. The second Translations Collider Academy session will be held in May 2023 in Albania.

Video from the Translations Collider Academy: International Academy on Literary Management and Translation Promotion | Struga, North Macedonia 2022


 

• Studies

„Mapping translated literatures from the Western Balkans (2015-2020)“  A summary of six reports on the state of translations from the languages of the Wеstern Balkan countries. Data, comments and policy recommendations The study is available here (in English language).

		„Сите драјвери вклучени; извештај (факти, анализа и препораки) за македонската литература во превод (2015-2020)“  The study is available here (in Macedonian language).
		„Глас, Ехо. Српска литература у преводу (2015-2020): Статистике, коментари, препоруке“ The study is available here (in Serbian language).
		„Letërsia shqiptarе. Përkthime në gjuhët e Bashkimit Europian dhe të Ballkanit Perëndimor (2015-2020)“                                                    The study is available here (in Albanian language).
		„Letërsia shqiptarе. Përkthime në gjuhët e Bashkimit Europian dhe të Ballkanit Perëndimor (2015-2020)“                                                    The study is available here (in Albanian language).

„Izvještaj o prevodilaštu (2015-2020)“                                                                                                                                Podaci, analize podataka i preporuke za Crnu Goru The study is available here (in Montenegrin language).

 

„Bosanskohercegovački književnici u prijevodima na evropske jezike - studija (2015-2020)“ Bibliografija, analize i preporuke o književnim djelima Bosne i Hercegovine u prijevodu na evropske jezike u periodu od 2015. do 2020. godine The study is available here (in Bosnian language).

Watch the Balkan Translations Collider project official video:
 

 
The Collider is a three-year project and is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.


 



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