Six British contemporary poets are coming to Bucharest from April 18th to April 22nd to edit translations from the Romanian contemporary poetry. For five days, the Romanian Cultural Institute will host several workshops where texts translated from the master students of the University of Bucharest will be edited by the six British guests. The final scripts will be published in a bilingual anthology of Romanian contemporary poetry.
The Literary Translation Workshops will open on April 18th at 10 a.m. in the presence of Duncan Mothersill – Director English Language Services within British Council, Octavian Roske – the director of the English department at the University of Bucharest and other guests.
The initiative of this project belonged to Lidia Vianu, director of the Master for Translation of the Contemporary Literary Text with the University of Bucharest, representing a chance for the Romanian literature to come in to the British editorial market, which is one of the hardest to get by an author coming from the central and southeastern Europe.
40 Romanian poets will have their lines translated in English, among whom there are Ana Blandiana, Nora Iuga, Angela Marinescu, Emil Brumaru, Nicolae Prelipceanu, Mircea Cărtărescu, Adrian Popescu or Robert Şerban.
Who are the six British poets?
- Anne Stewart – very active in the social and literary life, also the initiator of an online platform dedicated to female writers.
- Jeremy Page – recently nominated for the BBC National Short Story Award; he is a poet, playright, proseman, but also journalist and film and TV screenwriter.
- Alwyn Marriage – a philosophy teacher, manager of the Oversteps books publishing house, famous poetess frequently lecturing across universities and literary festivals.
- Katherine Gallagher – famous poetess of Australian origin, settled in London since the 70s; she wrote over 7 poetry volumes.
- Maggie Butt is teaching creative writing at the Middlesex University in London, being renowned for her BBC journalist career but also for writing best selling poetry, essay and fiction titles.
- Peter Phillips – well known Londoner poet, author of five poetry volumes.
On April 23 at 4 p.m., the British Council Library will host an event with the six British poets within the „Shakespeare Lives” project, occasioned by the anniversary of 400 years since William Shakespeare’s death.