Translation is all around us; it’s something we just don’t usually think about. For three whole days focus will be placed firmly on translation in all its forms. Norway’s House of Literature will be filled from cellar to garret with translation, translators and translations.
Translated Days will comprise presentations and conversations, seminars and lectures, debates and dialogues, award ceremonies and competitions, films, concerts and exhibitions – great and small, narrow and wide. Most of the programme will be in Norwegian.
Even though the main focus of the event is on literary translation – fiction and non-fiction literature, textbooks, drama and lyrics – we will also meet translation in a number of other forms: Interpreters from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration will discuss problems encountered in court and in the health service, audiovisual translators will demonstrate how television programmes are subtitled and give members of the public an opportunity to try their hand at subtitling, comic strip translators will exhibit and show how Japanese comic strips become Norwegian, universities will present and discuss their translation courses and research projects, and school children will be invited to take part in competitions and games.
Seminars will be held on translation and football (which language do trainers use when instructing footballers from many countries?), on what happens when the unconscious translation is printed, on the theatres’ work with foreign texts, on the literary history of translation and the social history of translators, on persecuted translators and interpreters and authors in cities of refuge in Norway, on brand new and previous Bible translations, on machine-assisted translation and technical aids, on translation of computer games, on sign language, on guaranteed translation support for academic texts and the future of purchasing schemes.
Visitors will have the chance to meet foreign writers who will present their new books in conversation with their Norwegian translators, we will meet Norwegian authors in conversation with their foreign translators, and there will be opportunities to hear seasoned and novice translators speak of their greatest challenges and worst mistakes. In addition, Norwegian crime writers will talk about their favourite translations, while poets will recite their translations.
The programme will also include:
• The World in Norwegian – a collaboration between Deichmanske bibiotek (Oslo Public Library), the Arts Council Norway and the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators
• The Norwegian Association of Critics’ award ceremony for Best Translation
• Seminar on non-fiction literature
• Annual meeting of the Norwegian Forum for Language Consultants
• “Prosalong” arranged by the Norwegian Non-fiction Writers and Translators Association
• Publishing houses present a range of newly translated books
• Gala presentation
• Slam translation
• “Translated food” in the café and a presentation focusing on challenges facing translators of cookery books
• Children will be invited to play with language and alphabets and find out which language is spoken in “The Blue Mountain”.
• Opening lecture on Translation and culture by Trond Berg Eriksen, professor in the history of ideas and translator of a number of books.
A separate programme will be issued shortly here.
Organisers: The Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association and the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators