Simina Popa is a literary translator from Portuguese into Romanian and a CELA alumna. In the Strasbourg European Conference on Literary Translation (2-4 Oct. 2024) she took part in the panel "Fostering diversity and the circulation of literary works“.

Just when I thought the CELA project couldn’t get me out of my comfort zone anymore after many years of growing old together, here it was: The Strasbourg European Conference on Literary Translation, organized by CEATL (European Council of Literary Translators’ Association) during the first days of October. It must be said that CELA and CEATL are two networks I both belong to and truly believe in. During this event I tried to get them to know one another better, since until now they have just been winking at each other from afar. Hundreds of translators and literary professionals filled a place of utmost formality and high-level decision making: the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It reminded me of a documentary made some years ago by a Romanian film-maker, called Government of Children, where she invited children to imagine laws and how to rule the world. I was just as impressed then as I was now, seeing translators and literature in the lead. Sometimes, you just have to believe John Lennon when he invites you to imagine. The conference was structured in panels on different topics over two days. But before getting to the works, the participants had the chance of a warm opening night: Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov talked to five of his translators - Magdalena Pytlak (Polish), Angela Rodel (English), Milena Selimi (Albanian), Marie Vrinat-Nikolov (French) and María Vútova (Spanish). Another rare sight: a renowned writer moderating his translators and ending the talk with a chorus of simultaneous reading of his work in all languages, literally conducting the polyphony. This polyphony continued throughout the next days in the Parliament’s conference room - translators helped out by interpreters ensuring English, French and German of everything being said.

A foggy head and a feeling of pressure may occur in a setting such as the European Parliament, especially when you have to deliver a speech to a room filled with people as well as an online audience. Even when the speech is about such a nice project as CELA and I had all the support from CELA partners – some of them in the room, such as Monica Salvan from FILIT, Julia Rafailovich from NextPage, Vladimir Arsenijević from KROKODIL, and some of them at home, but in my thoughts. The place can be intimidating and maybe it should be. Happily enough, my contribution was in one of the first panels, allowing me to clear my head afterwards and take off the pressure so I could enjoy all the other presentations. “Ears are the happiest organs,” said writer Melinda Nadj Abonji, in the short interview held by Tanja Petrič (DSKP Slovenian Association) during the conference. And so it was, I was all ears, imagining how the surrounding crowd would look like when Melinda Nadj Abonji said: “And translators have very large ears.”

The first day focussed on things we, translators and lit-pros, already have and mostly know: networks, reports, grants, schools and a short history. For the “second oldest profession in the world”, as Françoise Wuilmart (translator and co-founder of CEATL) playfully put it, the infrastructure for translators and literary professionals is extremely young and largely still “under construction“. The impression I was getting was that we each have some beautiful pieces of Lego, on many shelves, some mini-sets and lots of building joy and skills. We’re still elaborating on a combination of all these possibilities, but, after all, that’s why we were there. An interesting idea appeared in presentations delivered in different languages: teach (and preach) translation in early school years, don’t wait until graduate studies. It can benefit reading, empathy and the consciousness of diversity. Also, not at all to be ignored, it can benefit the endangered species of language studies. As one inspired speaker said, “it’s not about innovation, but exchange”. And it was actually a relief to hear that. The rush of always coming up with something new, different and exciting makes us forget many times about the simple sharing of what we already have. Use those Lego pieces. There were some battles to fight on the second day: AI, data collection, community building, threats to democracy that are also endangering translators, writers and the book circulation. Machine translation, the still ripening apple of discord, brought pros and cons in the debate – though more cons seemed to float in the air.

However, it was interesting to find out that there is such a thing as CALT:  Computer Assisted Literary Translation, a concept trying to place and keep the human factor as the main source. Also, there was the intriguing suggestion of documenting your own work while translating, to prove intellectual Ela Varošanec Krsnik (CEATL) presentation on AI in LT ownership. What an archive would that turn out to be! As José Saramago said once, writing about a slightly different idea, that of an archive containing every person’s life story, the documents to be deposited would cover the entire Earth, and the Moon too! Translators would then have to make their way to other planets (but we are accustomed to that). Another discourse offered an idea as delicate and deep as a poem: AI translation would deprive us of our right of the first try / essay – the right of doing things your own personal way.

In the panel on community building a direct statement challenged the fellow-speakers presenting their successful projects in libraries, festivals and fairs: “Looks like we are missing an antagonist here – we all showcase the communities we have, but afterwards we go home and the problem of the readership persists.” That was Vladimir Arsenijević, by the way, from the Serbian KROKODIL Association. Keeping curiosity alive and gathering public is indeed a tricky task when it comes to literature – a slow-consuming good, an “unessential service”, as it was labelled during the early pandemic crisis. “But what would you do if you had a magic wand to help you?” asked Cécile Deniard, the mastermind and coordinator behind this giant Strasbourg conference initiative. The panel was about data collection, about the importance of transparency and information exchange. To Cécile’s question, some answers were very practical solutions (also not that hard to obtain, really): get more funding for rights acquisitions, meet more translators for rare language combinations, have bigger teams to overcome the issue with understaffed projects. The only real magic invoked was in the answer asking to spark more curiosity when it comes to other people’s cultures and literature. Opacity and lack of perspective can lead to difficult situations, as the last panel titled “Translating and publishing as a political act. Europe and freedom of speech in the 21st century” showed. The invited speakers presented their work, in which they look for and denounce injustices in the literary domain of translation, writing and publishing. This is quite a responsibility to take, but these injustices are proof that language and literature are powerful, since they are considered a threat for political ideologies and propagandas. The panel was tough and impressive, a useful reminder to defend our rights and stay available to hear one another.

The circular natural order of the panels was very clever: the joyful networks from the beginning of the conference, the schools, the communities, the cultural exchange and the creativity, if neglected and unsupported, can lead to heavy threatening situations, burdened with political constraints. There were so many interesting things said and so many perspectives to try on. The programme alone is an extremely useful bibliography for the cultural panorama currently in place and a contact book to envy. So much is going on, that we have no excuse for not taking part in cultural initiatives and being interested. So go on, translators, writers and literary professionals, put on your big ears and get in the game!