Director of Literature Across Frontiers speaks at a major European conference on literary translation in Strasbourg
Alexandra Büchler, director of Literature Across Frontiers and strategic co-director of Wales Literature Exchange spoke at a landmark conference that took place in the European Parliament on 2-4 October 2024. The conference brought together key players in the field of European literary translation with 300+ attending in person and over 1,500 following online. Alexandra Büchler spoke about the power of networks in cultural development representing the ENLIT European Network for Literary Translation where she serves on the board.
She said: “I’m honoured to be invited to speak at this major event on behalf of ENLIT, a network Literature Across Frontiers co-founded which now gathers 30 organisations from around Europe. My contribution to the conference underlines the importance of our continuous efforts to remain part of the European literary scene and networks, despite the UK’s departure from the EU which denied us access to European sources of funding with disastrous consequences at a time of arts and culture budget cuts. We continue to initiate and support exchange and collaboration projects that offer particularly emerging writers from Wales opportunities to connect with their European peers and attend literary festivals and other events.”
Professor Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones, director of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic studies said: “Networking with European colleagues is essential for our cultural development and we are active in several key networks, including ENLIT, ELEN (European Language Equality Network ), Culture Action Europe and the European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism.”
Other speakers on the networks panel were from the RECIT network of literary translation residency centres, TRADUKI network supporting translation between South East Europe and German-speaking countries, Archipelagos project managed by ATLAS and the CELA project providing professional development opportunities for emerging writers and translators.
Click here to download the conference programme PROGRAMME_GB-1 and to follow the conference online.