A literary translator in your neighborhood (SUCCESS STORY)

A success story from DHKP in Croatia.

Starting from the fact that at least 80% of all books published in Croatia are created by translating from foreign languages, the Association of Croatian Literary Translators (DHKP) has designed the project „Literary Translator in your neighborhood” so that readers can get to know the authors of those translations, people responsible for their joy of reading.

As part of the project, from February to July of 2018 DHKP organized several meetings of literary translators with readers in some informal city environments: in the city park behind the library in Dugave, in the mountain hut Puntijarka on Sljeme, at the Oncology Ward of the Children’s Hospital , in Bookar’s bookstore and in famous cafes Lusso and Kinoteka…

On those occasions, our translators read a clip from some of their translations and concisely presented the work to the audience with whom they talked about their vocation.

Meetings were moderated and prepared by Ana Badurina and Ursula Burger.

The goal of this project was to familiarize our citizens, in their neighbourhood,with the work of literary translators, to increase its visibility in the local community and in media. In addition, DHKP initiated this project as a step to those potential readers to whom it does not reach through conventional literary events.

On the Oncology Ward of the Children’s Hospital there were 5-7 children who were free at the time and did not receive any therapy. They were at different stages of their illness, so some just smiled or were very serious, others took part. We talked about the book “The Storm Whale” by Benjy Davies. One of the girls even read it in English (because she grew up in America), and we talked about their favorite animals and pets they have at home.

Some children arrived during the meeting, they were also accompanied by their parents.

After the discussion on the picture book, read by Vanda in Croatian and then ih English, we made a whale and continued a more informal conversation. A girl who was attached to infusions, and initially was terribly serious, began to rejoice and smile. We believe that, with our visit, we brought some joy and hope. The leader of Hospital School expressed interest to continue the meetings this year.

Conclusion: The project “Literary translator in your neighborhood” proved to be a valuable project that allowed literary translators to speak in a variety of environments in front of a diverse audience. Also, the project was very well advertised and attracted media and attention of public to literary translation. The project was reviewed on several occasions by various portals and newspapers and the Facebook announcements were submitted to the DHKP website.

Later on, the project evolved in “Literary translator in your town”, so members of our organization travelled Croatia far and vide to talk with readers. Also, in the pandemic times we developed “Literary translator on your screen”, and we organized on-line talks with our members that live abroad about there experiences in literary translation.

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