The idea for the Translators’ Portraits (Prevoditeljski portreti) project was born amid the pandemic. As the Association we wanted to make sure that all our members are safe and sound. As our work is often lonely in the best of times, we thought that it would make sense to create small networks of support among our members. The core idea was to connect older or more experienced members with younger or less experienced so they could share experiences, worries, and hopes, as well as get a chance to communicate with colleagues. From that, the project developed into series of interviews. It proved to be a great encouragement for everybody involved: younger translators got a chance to get to know more experienced translators and to learn from them (some of them were lucky enough to meet their role models in translation); older translators could share their experiences, talk about their work and times past and were shown that they’re by no means forgotten, but remembered and appreciated; we (Croatian Literary Translators Association) helped develop better communication among our members and got a series of important testimonies which could serve as sort of monument of time, but also as a way to review changes in working and cultural conditions; and the wider community could enjoy in the final product which is series of interesting interviews that offers a glimpse in the past and present work of literary translators and get a better idea of the importance of our work. All interviews are written and have four universal questions that are repeated with slight modifications in all of them and one extra question which interviewers formed based on their interests.
Participants: in the first “season” in 10 interviews participated ten interviewees and eight interviewers + coordinator for the project; in the second season which is currently running there are 12 interviews and 12 interviewers.
Aprox. budget: 1250€
Link for the project: http://www.dhkp.hr/aktivnosti/portreti