Tenth Newsletter
Events of 2007
In January 2007 the Translator’s House began its tenth year. The first guests of the house in 2007 were the students majoring in literary translation at the Balassi Institute. Anna Pervosvanskaja, Alexandra Bancsenko, Avi Dekel, Ivana Ristov, Helena Molnar, Sato Wakako, Zlatko Omerbasic, Heike Flemming, Rebeka Herman and Jiři Zeman all spent a week in the house, working on the translation necessary for their Master’s degree. Many of them have already published their own translations; others are under contract with publishers for translating works from the Hungarian. – Every room in the house was repainted, all the windows were replaced. – On the 25th of April, students from the Lajos Lóczy Secondary School visited the house to get acquainted with the numerous important art-works hosted there. The Art historian Márta Kovalovszky guided them through the house, turning the event into an interactive tour. – Besides some new guests many of our regular visitors have returned to the house working on new translations. (See the section about our guests for a list.) From the 20th till the 22nd of April, the House hosted an international conference on Béla Hamvas organized by the Bipolar foundation,
where a section of the German translation of Hamvas’s Karnevál was presented to the audience. In Cetate, a small port town on the Danube in Romania, Gábor Schein and Péter Rácz participated in the founding of the HALMA, an institution constituting of an alliance of Writers’ Retreats from Central and Eastern Europa, Péter Rácz was elected a vice-president of the organization. Gábor Schein traveled to the international debut of the organization in Berlin to represent the House. The seminar for translators from Finland focused on writers from Voivodina, (Ottó Tolnai, Attila Balázs, Ottó Fenyvesi and Beáta Thomka) the writers were also present. The participants of the seminar : Tapani Hynynen, Mirja Oksanen, Salla Mikkola, Pilvi Hämeenaho, Johanna Arja Raimi, Katri Joensuu – were supervised by Tuomo Lahdelma and Orsolya Fábián.
– In May (21-24.) the first annual meeting of the Alliance of European Translator’s Houses (Reseau Européen des Centres Internationaux de Traducteurs Littéraires – RECIT), took place in Blatonfüred, Harald Hartung from the European Commission in Brussels was also present at the occasion, during the two days spent at the House our guests also had a chance to visit the neighborhood.
– The participants of the Italian Translator’s seminar (Monica Savoia, Silvia Miani, Anna Lisa Spaccarotella, Fanton Chiara – all of them winners in a translator’s contest in Rome) and their instructor, Eszter De Martin, concluded the work on a volume of Szabó Lőrinc. Their work will be hosted on our homepage until the publication of the volume in 2008. – The winner of the translator’s contest organized by the Bálint Balassi institute, Guilherme da Silva Braga from Brazil, won a week’s stay in the House. – On the 9th of June we organized our regular Garden party, which was once again a great success. Besides our permanent art exhibition (with works by: Ferenc Banga, Imre Bak, Márton Barabás, Mariann Bán, John Bátki, András Böröcz, Imre Bukta, Mária Chilf, József Darázs, Pál Deim, El Kazovszkij, Miklós Erdély, László Fehér, László Felugossy, Áron Gábor, Bálint Havas, László Hegedűs2, Katalin Káldi, Károly Kelemen, György Kemény, Ilona Keserü, Károly Klimó, András Koncz, Antal Lakner, Viktor Lois, Rezső Móder, István Nádler, Réka Nemere, István Orosz, Vladimir Péter, Sándor Pinczehelyi, Sándor Rácmolnár, Gábor Roskó, Kata Szalai, Zsuzsa Szenes, Ágnes Szépfalvi, Tamás Szikora, Júlia Szilágyi, Klára Szilárd, Margit Szilvitzky, János Szirtes, Zoltán Szlabey, László Szotyory, Gábor Szörtsey, József Szurcsik, Villő Turcsány, Mamikon Yengibarian) we hosted a successful solo exhibition of Tamás Szikora’s works (organized by Márta Kovalovszky), opened by the poet Otto Tolnai. The 6th issue of the Füredi Fordítói Füzetek contains passage by Viktória Radics (Ne ölj!) in 18 languages, translated by former guests of the house, and the student learning translation at the Balassi institute. The Győri-Madaras duo gave a concert, which was followed in the evening by János Nagy and Ferenc Darvas on the piano. The inauguration of the „Flag of the Translator’s House” was a memorable event, its creator the textile artist Katalin Sárvári was also present at the occasion. (The goulash-soup was cooked by many volunteers under the eager supervision of Ágnes ©Jesze and Bernadett ©Nagy. The kitchen was manned by a team under the leadership of © Kinga Szokács and Tóth Judit.) The participants of the Spanish translator’s seminar (July 1-6) (José Miguel González Trevejo, Rita Juhász, Veronika Major, Márta Pávai Patak, Mária Szijj, José Luis Gutiérrez and Zsuzsa Ruppl – led by Adan Kovacsics) translated works by Attila Bartis, with the helpful support of the author (participants of the former seminars created the Literatura Húngara On-line homepage, aimed at popularizing Hungarain literature in the Spanish speaking world; www.lho.es).
The next translator’s seminar hosted in the house, for French translators was once again led by Ágnes Járfás. The team working on short stories by István Örkény: Anne Tiberghien, Olivier Bickart,
Sophie Aude and Laurence Dulieu. Our homepage has many photos of all our events and our visitors. www.c3.hu/forditohaz (see under: Events, Photos). The winner of the Budapest Library of Foreign Languages, Máté Spiegl, was also awarded a week’s stay in the House by our foundation. – In September we had our usual open house day, where the citizens of the town interested in our work could visit the house. – From the 30th of September till the 6th of October the House hosted a Croatian translator’s seminar (Dijana Bošnjak, Marija Šavorić, Katarina Kapović, Ljubica Jerković, Mihaela Crnjak and Lidija Brtan – led by Čurković-Major Franciska) working on Csillagmajor by Ervin Lázár. A month later we hosted an Estonian translator’s seminar
(Lauri Eesmaa, Leelo Jõulu, Reet Klettenberg, Katrin Küünal, Helina Pukk, Rutt Reemann-Arro, Piia Taremaa, lead by Viktória Tóth and Krisztina Tóth), working on plays by János Háy. In the middle of November, after a few years’ pause the House once again hosted a seminar from Slovakian translators (Eva Andrejčáková, Deák Renáta, Gabi Magová) organized by Judit Görözdi.
Each of the authors whose works they translated, Krisztina Tóth, Lajos Parti Nagy, László Márton spent a day in the house participating in the seminar. – Péter Rácz participated on the plenary meeting of HALMA, in Berlin he took part in a conference organized by the Bosch Stiftung. Vertalershuis from The Netherlands organized a Hungarian Dutch translator’s seminar in the House, with the following participants: Judit Gera, Orsolya Varga, Mari Alföldy, Nóra Jánoshazi, Veronika Máthé, Kamilla Mezősi, Piroska Rozgonyi, Krisztina Törő, Viktor Török, Erika Winkler. Guest writer: Thomas Rosenboom, the group was lead by: Peter Bergsma. Kinga Szokacs prepared extracts from our literary journals throughout the year to aid our translators, these can be found in the house as well as online. – Thanks to our sponsors the library was expanded, (the translators may suggest books they need), we purchased works of Hungarian literature and reference material. Gábor Lipták, the former proprietor of the House was posthumously awarded a „For the city of Balatonfüred” medal, which on the suggestion of András Lipták was placed in the house. A number of our former guests were awarded Milán Füst prizes: Kjoszeva Szvetla, Sophie Aude, Sava Babic, Kari Kemény, Bátki János, Naciye Güngörmüs, Gács Éva. Some of our guests used the low cost meal opportunity provided by the Baricska csárda, many of visited the beach of the UNI Hotel which is free of charge for our guests, we thank the, once again for these opportunities.
On the 21th of January 2008 we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the opening of the House, festivities will be organized during the Hungarian Book Week.
Our caretaker Zsuzsa Bocsor Mrs. Szamosfalvi did a splendid job all through the year, the guests were delighted.
– In the course of the year the following media reported about the work of the Translators House: Napló (Veszprém), Füred TV, Balatonfüredi Napló, Népszabadság, Magyar Nemzet, Magyar Rádió, Élet és Irodalom, Litera.