Archipelagos - Expanding literature routes in Europe

ongoing

Raising the unseen stories Archipelagos' ambition is to make the diversity of European literary voices visible and widely read. By fostering the discovery of new voices in lesser-used languages thanks to the role of literary scouts played by translators, by qualifying them in these fields through contact with their peers, the diversity of representations and imaginations will be encouraged. More than 100 translators will be supported in their research trough residencies; 10 workshops will bring together 176 colleagues working with 10 core languages in any possible combination with other European languages. In addition to this increase in supply, the project aims to increase demand. Webinars, summer schools and professional encounters will be addressed to over 150 booksellers, librarians, and publishers in three of the largest book markets of the EU (Germany, France, and Spain). They will be given a special access to literature written in Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian, so-called less-used languages in the book market. Publishers will travel to Bulgaria, Ukrainian authors to Berlin, new voices in Arabic will be heard in Paris: public events will flourish across Europe and give a large audience the opportunity to share with the explorers of the biblio-diversity the unseen treasures they have found. Archipelagos aims to draw attention to other ways to tell the world. The change that Archipelagos aims to trigger is to delink support given to translators and production of a book. This dissociation is the condition for the acceptance of a new type of support, which would pay for the currently unseen and mostly unknown scouting activity. The project should convince decision makers to trust in the leverage power of this small but powerful step, which can lead to a change of perception of the translator’s craft, to more curiosity towards the lesser-used languages literature, and to the safeguard of an independent and creative book sector.