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Literature Across Frontiers • Inizjamed International Symposium Re-Visions Literary Exchange in an Enlarged Europe St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Malta – 3-6 November, 2005 A project funded by the Culture 2000 programme of the EU held in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment and with the support of the British Council, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Casa Rocca Piccola and the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity,
Programme
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Abstracts |
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Re-Visions - art is in itself visionary, which is why its appeal is universal. All artists have their own individual vision, and their style reflects the idiosyncracies of that vision. Moreover, every age is more or less influenced by national and global, contemporary cultural visions, new philosophies, etc. Every development or change suggests a revision of former visions. It is a bit like a kaleidoscope, except that new bits keep getting added. Since the symposium is about writers and the significance of their work in today's shrinking world, therefore, it is also about the literary visions of the 21st century, ergo re these visions. With the European Union, the literatures of the countries which belong to the Union are called into a new relationship which is bound to act, modify, stimulate, change, etc., and be affected by the enlargement and the interchange of culture. As a result many of the tenets of literature are bound to be revised within this new context, and the new literature be influenced by this revision. The title of the symposium therefore calls attention to the fact that the symposium is concerned both with the individual visions of the separate countries, but also the revisions which can result from literary exchange in an enlarged Europe |
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Keynote 1 Ned Thomas (Mercator Centre) Laying the basis for long-term networking The Mercator Centre bears the name of the famous Renaissance geographer not because of “Mercator’s Projection” for which he is usually remembered today but because he attempted the first linguistic mapping of Europe. The Literature across Frontiers programme grew within a centre strongly concerned with languages and this remains the case. I shall say something about the origins of Mercator and LAF and the significance of the European dimension for the development of these projects. While the ideal of a European Mosaic within which distinct and evolving cultures communicate multilaterally with each other is one to be striven for, in practice we have to contend with uneven development in the distribution of resources both historically and today; with the influence of policies at the regional, state, European and international levels, with the lack of policies as well, with markets, the globalization of media, the commoditization of culture. While it may be enough for the individual writer to think in terms of individual consciousness and self-expression, that writer will only find publication and readers in the home market and readers in other markets through translation, within complex structures which have economic, technological and policy dimensions. Many of us have come here on a voyage of discovery towards writers we have not heard of, cultures we know little about, and people we shall get to know better. That holds all the excitement of possibility. But we shall return to our own distinct worlds which have their own institutional strengths and weaknesses, their political and economic constraints. If a symposium is to offer more than a personal expansion of consciousness then we must use it to find ways of institutionalizing cooperation, organizing mutual support, laying the basis for long-term networking. |
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Keynote 2 Adrian Grima (Inizjamed) Where is Maltese Literature? The ... |
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Éva Karádi (Hungary) Introduction: Session 1 – Is there a European cultural identity? Creation of the European Union has been primarily an economic and secondly a political project. What has its impact been in the cultural sphere? Smaller countries, less known languages and literatures became more visible. At least for a while. What can we do to maintain this visibility, to preserve the interest of a broader European public for our different languages and literatures? We, the people of the enlarged Europe, have certainly many things in common and we also have significant differences. We have different languages. But is it really that important to have and to maintain this linguistic diversity? Even if we insist on the importance of our local languages, not at least as the medium of our literature, our national and cultural identity, we don’t want to be separated by our languages. We would like to share our views, our experiences. Literature is the most disadventaged art form from this point of view compared to arts, music, dance and film, because it has to be translated. Are writers supposed to represent their countries or just themselves on the European scene? Could a regional integration build the basis for a European integration and approval on the cultural level? Shouldn’t the major European languages, especially the historically dominant ones play a mediating role to for the smaller, lesser known languages and literatures? |
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Jan Kaus (Estonia) No Sex, No Future Maybe Estonians are not a real nation, but sort of a project. Romantic project, of course. The “project managers” lived at the beginning of the 19th century and they were not Estonians. A few Baltic Germans decided to save a strange mumble of an language from vanishing into the depths of the history and it is quite possible, that they never dreamed succeeding so well. But if the Estonian nation is a project, which currently is still running, then the Estonian literature is a strange side-effect of the project, keeping it alive and kicking. Estonian literature is a club and the question could be: what has the club to offer – for example to Europe? And does it even want to offer as much as expected, maybe the doors of the club should remain closed – most of the time? In this case it would be reasonable to ask: why should they? |
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Kryzstof Czyzewski (Poland) New Agora. A cross-cultural action in publishing As Europeans today we pride ourselves on cultural diversity and fight for the preservation of separate identities. Yet haven't we, in all that struggle, imperceptibly, lost agora and the culture of dialogue that accompanies it? And if we have – how can we see it restored? Do we need a new agora today? Is it not in contradiction with the ever so powerful pressure on diversity and separateness? What are the sources of today’s crisis of multiculturalism and what are the ways out? These are but a few of crucial questions and issues the cross-cultural action “New Agora” launched by Borderland Foundation will be dedicated to. It’s program is complex and multidisciplinary, associated with mobile workshops of bridge-builders for young generation, flying literary “Cafè Europa” gatherings involving writers, translators and publishers, and international symposiums “New Agora” with the participation of an assembly of fresh-minded representatives of humanistic reflection of our time. All of it will be organized in different parts of Europe. A special publishing program based on an European network is going to be developed in accordance to fulfil and assist this cross-cultural action. It’s ambition is to create a common internet site, magazine and series of books. |
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At first glance, Europe as a common home seems to be an enticing slogan full of happiness and security. Particularly for small nations that have suffered under the Soviet system. An invitation to join the European superpower decreases inferiority complexes of small nations and makes them feel more proud and secure. Skepticism is always battled – “They don’t need us - we need them”. |
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Love stories from distant countries? No thanks How to export? The Serbian writer Vladimir Arsenijević sold his first novel in 16 countries represented by his Belgrade publisher; for his second, he was represented by a well-known international firm. It was sold to no-one. On the other hand, even Harvill included a Slovenian author in their list only after she was published (and represented) by Gallimard. My own book was published in neighboring countries after (and partly because of) its publication in the USA. What to export? Most of the writers from Eastern Europe who are known in the USA or in the West in general are known as the victims of communism, lack of freedom of expression, censorship etc. and this is also the very reason why they are published in the West. Love stories from distant countries? No, thanks; we’ve got enough of our own! Where to export? In the UK, 2% of the titles on the book market are translations; in the USA, 3%; in Slovenia, roughly 70%. |
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Ġorġ Mallia (National Book Council, Malta), The Native Writer as Hermit: Questions about Diffusion In an age of instant electronic communication, I find it difficult to believe that there can ever be solely a national perspective in the arts. The influx of all that is world-wide, kneaded into the national and European cultural roots, has created societies that are much more cosmopolitan than hermetically “national”, creating identification and recognisability that go beyond what is encountered in the everyday. Literature has developed to draw nurture from many sources not necessarily native to its writers, but which have intertwined into a compounded identity. But the question of diffiusion of this literature is another matter. Where does the book, the still extant, still loved, traditional vehicle for writing, stand in today’s world of instant need-to-know? And how can a writer sell a book outside the confines of a native language without the dilemma of linguistic “betrayal”, given that a book has no-subtitles? Book Councils, like the one in Malta, strive to create backdrops for the solution to such queries, both in a context of challenging for excellence (such as with the National Literary Prize) and the cross-fertilization of the physical book (as is the case with the International Book Fair). Still, throughout all this, the questions regarding the crossing of frontiers by linguistically-bound writers remain. |
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If no continent is geographically a natural kind, Europe is one even less so. Europe is not a "physical" entity but a "meta-physical" one. I'm inclined to put this rather bluntly: Europe "is" whenever or where-ever a certain Ancient Athens is taken as a paradigm for culture, ie. for philosophy & science, arts and politics. According to this criterion, societies or ideologies as disparate as Ancient Rome, Christian theology of the Middle Ages, Kingdom of Charlemagne, Renassaince city-states and modern scientific communities qualify as "European". So far so good. The problem is: why call this cultural orientation "Europe"? Europe is a proper name, but the orientation we use its name for is universal. This is the essential paradox of Europe: its structural impossibility. Europe is a utopia, but not just any utopia - rather, it has the structure of utopia (non-place). Europe is the utopia of utopia: a concrete place being a bearer of universal truths and politics which by definition should not be “tainted” by local roots or identities. This is clearly impossible and “Europe” centers precisely around this impossibility.
Such metaphysical
considerations have a bearing on the present-day processes of
The question of
European identity in the context of the European Union can be |
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Stig Sæterbakken (Norway) My heart belongs to Europe, therefore it is broken As the European Community stretches eastwards, the question of a European identiy versus a national identity becomes all the more pressing. Norway, as a small and wealthy country in the ouskirts of the European continent, which twice has decided by referendum not to become a member of the EU, thus finds itself in the squeeze between a traditonally strong American influence on the one hand, an ambivalent, not to say schizofrenic relationship with the new Europe on the other, and its claimed “national roots” on the third. What is truly American, truly European and truly Norwegian in all this? Is is possible to say? Or: Is it necessary? Could it be that the question of cultural identity is the wrong question, asked at the wrong time? Could it be that our concept of “identity”, national or personal, is the greatest dellusion of them all? And what part does literature play in this? Does literature help us maintain and develop our individual and collective identity, or does it on the contrary inspire us to discredit it, transcend it, dispose of it? When the one-eyed Polyphemus asks us who we are, what should our answer be? |
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Gudrun Sigfusdottir (Guðrún Sigfúsdóttir, Iceland) A Publisher Working in a Very Small Market I’m the editor in chief of the fiction at the JPV Publishing house in Reykjavik. At the Symposium I will be discussing some characteristics of the Icelandic Bookmarket, how JPV Publishers do choose its books, what perhaps limits selling Icelandic books abroad and mentioning what those who translate from Icelandic have in common. The Book Market: We Icelanders are a small nation – and therefore we have a small market. The Icelandic book market is also a bit of an unusal and fluctuating one, in that the vast majority of our sales take place just a few weeks before Christmas. JPV Publishers: We try to keep a very close eye on what is being published elsewhere. In my opinion, the most important thing is to have what we call a nose for the fluctuating areas of interest of the nation, to be able to “feel the vibe”, as it were, and sense what people want to read. Selling Icelandic books abroad: The situation has changed dramatically since foreign publishers first became interested in Icelandic books about two decades ago but Icelandic books have rarely been doing well on the international market. There is an exception, crime do sell, and crime novelist Arnaldur Indridason and has just been nominated for the Golden Dagger Award in the UK. Translators: Good translators are always hard to find and we try to hold on to our best ones. The same translator translates almost all of our children’s books and has received many awards for his work. The industry needs good translators just as much as good authors. The translators build bridges between continents, cultures & people. |
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Rubén Palma (Denmark) Immigrant Literature and Official Danish Policies Countless are the borders and frontiers literature has to cross. The way a certain kind of literature is considered may be decisive for its survival. In most European countries, immigrant writers are considered peripheral writers. Their literature is seen as a testimony from far away, not at all as a literary element of the national literary scene - and it is an open question if it ever will. Large scale immigration is only some few decades old in Denmark. Since the very beginning there have been a considerable number of immigrant writers trying to express themselves in their own languages or in Danish. But only a handful have managed to get published. The official policies have been different, oscillating from indifference to good will depending on governments, institutions and, mainly, persons in charge. But a constant thread seems to be a kind of permanent gap between the artist of foreign background and the official Danish policies. Rubén Palma will, from the point of view of an immigrant writer, make a presentation of main lines in current Danish multicultural arts policy in practice, with specific reference to literature and translation. |
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Immanuel Mifsud (Malta) Mother Europe: the invisible mum and her lost children from the land down under Maltese writers of different epochs make frequent references to Europe in their writings, even if their motivations are not homogeneous. The ‘European ideal’ – a concept which never gets clarified or defined – can be found in the philosophy informing the project of M. A. Vassalli (1764-1829), universally acknowledged as the father of the Maltese language, a scholar and lexicographer who studied in Rome and who also lived in France. Europe is also referred to in the writings of national poet Dun Karm Psaila (1871-1961) and of Ġwann Mamo (1886-1941) the socio-realist enfant terrible who, at the beginning of the twentieth century travelled to various European countries from where he could assess the sea which, physically and metaphorically, estranged Malta from the Old Continent. However, these Europhile authors, amongst others, while looking at the same side of Europe (read the West) and considering it as some great Mother, defined it in different ways: the kernel of free thinking leading to the Enlightenment and Romanticism; the fortress protecting Christianity and its traditions from Islamic ‘threat’; or the cultural destination and point of reference for the emancipation of a country which, due to its geography, has always lagged behind. A year on after joining the European Union, the cultural relationship with the Continent is still unclear. First, because Malta still looks vertically upwards at Europe; secondly, because it is still virtually excluded from the discourse surrounding ‘Europe’ (particularly in the West-East paradigm); and also because even those hailing from the mainland seem to consider the question of a European identity as a political narrative which attempts to cover the regional differences without any considerable success. Furthermore, it seems that Malta is still experiencing apprehension towards certain ideals which other European countries have embraced and sustained for a long time. So on the one hand there is the yearning to look at Europe horizontally, at par with the rest of the European countries; on the other, however, there still exists an inner inhibition which bears down on the Maltese psyche , compelling it to look at Europe as some invisible mother, that lies somewhere ‘up there’, thus maitaining the status of the land down under. |
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Karsten Xuereb (Malta) Inizjamed – its ‘being’ is networking Inizjamed is a network which networks with others, and which finds that this way of organizing itself is essential to achieving its aims and succeeding to grow. In this approach it is very similar to other European small associations of a cultural, educational or developmental kind. Many of the reasons that lead to this way of being are also shared by such organizations. Firstly, the organization is very people-oriented. The organization lacks ‘full-time’ or ‘core’ human and financial resources, and a way around that is focusing on debate and doing. Moreover, these people are creative, not only in how they create their art but also in establishing contact with Inizjamed and other groups – through the internet, newspapers, journals, events, seminars and conferences, to mention a few. What it lacks in its own resources it finds through networking and therefore collaborating with other organizations, such as St James Cavalier, the British Council, the LAF and numerous Maltese and international NGOs and development organizations. Therefore, the organization does not depend heavily on ‘physicality’ and ‘location’. Rather, its existence is more dependent on its online presence, and the people who keep researching, debating and organizing events and running programmes within its flexible structure. Finally, although the organization is small, its vision is wide, and to run successfully it has to find ways of beating the isolation, and complacency, the local boundaries can create. Such boundaries include the geographical characteristics of Malta that are often compounded by a parochial approach to innovation and open debate. Therefore, strong, personal and long-term relationships with organizations like the Biennial for Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean are very sustaining for survival and growth. The concerns Kryzstof Czyzewski raises about the tension that rises from the struggle to maintain one’s own identity while developing a common public sphere are therefore very real, and in the case of Inizjamed, have to be addressed through a dynamic approach that accepts change and adaptability as ways of being. A key example of a project that characterizes Inizjamed’s affinity to networking is Klandestini, creative writing project in collaboration with writers in Cyprus, Greece and Italy and supported by the British Council (http://klandestini.britishcouncil.org). |
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Gwen Davies (Wales) Promoting that elusive bestseller
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Kornelijus Platelis (Lithuania) Vehicles for publishing and presenting literature in translation The main vehicle for publishing all kinds of literature is business, a profit making. We have to admit that texts we are talking about are not profitable for all participants involved in the process: author, publisher, seller. Funds promoting literature are in many countries of Europe and in the Union (Culture 2000). Thanks to them publishers can brake even including their own expenses. Majority of such funds supports only translation. It is not enough for a publisher in case of poetry at least. The role of such funds in promoting of literature is important. Lithuanian organization Books from Lithuania is very young but it has already completed successfully two very big and important projects of presenting our literature in Frankfurt (2002) and Gothenburg (2005) book fairs where Lithuania played the role of the main guest. This organization is not only paying translators but most often initializing books, anthologies, culture events. Such organizations are often connected to residences for writers and translators. The third vehicle of presenting literature is literary events and festivals. Directors of all international literary festivals of the world were invited to Vilenica festival in Slovenia in 2001 with an aim to create a global network. Nobody knows how many festivals there are but I think half of them were present. A network was not created because of very different interests but I still use the Directory compiled by organizers. I am the director of one of festivals – Druskininkai Poetic Fall. For me a kind of network can be useful in sense of expertise and possibility to run common projects. |
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Chris Gruppetta (Malta) Dissemination of Maltese Children’s Literature
As a publisher in Malta, my experience of Maltese literature publishing rests mainly in the field of children’s literature. Maltese-language children’s publishing is, when compared to other European countries, a relatively recent phenomenon, and in many respects is only now moving out of its infancy stages. This notwithstanding, Malta has – for its size – a considerable body of children’s literature. If one generalisation were to be made, it would be that the majority of texts tend to look back nostalgically into the past, although the past few years seem to be heralding renewed experimentation in content and style. Dissemination of Maltese children’s literature abroad has so far been limited, although there have been occasional translations and adaptations. There are also a handful of Maltese children’s authors who publish original English texts with UK publishers.
Population extent, from which we need to extract a subset of the reading population, and further narrow this down to the children reading population, of course limits dissemination quantitatively. On the other hand, this de facto insularity has allowed Maltese children’s publishing to move through its extended teething phase, and prior to attempting any debut in the international scene it has needed to move to a degree of professionalism.
This is entailing continuing development of and attention to production values, greater availability and use of prepress and design professionals, as well as – most difficultly – a progression in mindset from the cottage industry tradition to a more structured setup: thus for example, for better or for worse the figure of the literary agent is non-existent in Malta, and the role and functions of the editor are still highly resisted by sections of the publishing and bookwriting community. It is my opinion that before these levels of quality and professionalism were met, it would have been counterproductive to propose Maltese children’s books to rights purchasers abroad, as the latter are invariably accustomed to standards of excellence that comes from intense market competition.
My experience of collaboration with European publishers has been that of acquiring, not selling, rights, resulting in a number of coedition projects in the Maltese language with the likes of HarperCollins, Penguin/Ladybird, Usborne Publishing, Lion Publishing. Coeditions, while not contributing to the dissemination – within or outside Malta – of Maltese literature, do provide locally a benchmark of the professionalism required by the international publishing community (given the publishers’ contractual insistence on their standards of production and prepress), while at the same time establishing a network of contacts in the rights world for Maltese authors to make use of.
In the medium to long term, I am optimistic that the process will become a two-way one, and that Maltese children’s literature in translation will find its way into the European bloodstream. This will of course entail a sombering of our expectations and a readiness of all parties involved to accept the realities and commitments required by European (and non) publishers. |
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Mari Jose Olaziregi (Basque Country) Representation of small-language literatures on the international scene and obstacles to their greater dissemination
In Session 2 that will deal with the "Representation of small-language literatures on the international scene and obstacles to their greater dissemination" we will be talking about the problems involved in making minority literatures known abroad. How can we interest foreign markets and publishers in these literatures? In this – at least theoretically – rich and multicultural Europe, how do we enter a market dominated by mainstream literature? What resources have we got? All writers write within specific contexts. In Pavese’s opinion this creates universality. Does it naturally follow that the international literary market is interested in our specific context? In other words, is Europe curious about the many varied cultures and identities that inhabit it? George Steiner has said that there is no such thing as a minority language – but if we are talking about the promotion of all these different literatures, is that true? Can it not be said that smallness is an obstacle when a country tries to make its literature known |
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