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in this issue
- Editorial
- ISLANDS OF THE NORTH
- Life in a Reykjavik Suburb
- Streaker Disrupts Iceland v. Albania
- Writing in Shetland
- Orkney's George Mackay Brown
- David Constantine of Scilly
- CHILDREN'S LITERATURE FROM SCANDINAVIA
- Josefine Ottesen
- Charlotte Blay
- Tove Jansson
- Children's Literature in Finland in the 1990s
- NEWS
- Contributions
- The St Magnus Festival in Orkney
- Helsinki Conference in June
- The Lahti International Writers' Reunion
- The Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation
- The Tómas Guðmundsson Literary Prize in Iceland
- Contributions and Submissions
- Tax on Books in Slovenia
- Basque Daily Closed Down
- Correntes d'Escritas in Portugal
NEWS
Correntes d'Escritas in PortugalPovoa de Varzim is a small coastal resort in the north of Portugal whose population quadruples during the holiday month of August. To liven up the dull winter months, local journalist Manuela Ribeiro created a major literary event with the support of the Municipality and local businesses. Correntes d'Escritas is modelled on a twin literary event founded six years ago in the Spanish Gijon by writer Luis Sepulveda.
For the fourth year running, Correntes d'Escritas has brought together more than 50 writers from Portugal, Spain, South America and lusophone Africa to debate current political and literary issues and read from their work. This year, the event was threatened by massive cuts to the public budget that have put the entire Portuguese arts sector on alert, but as Luis Diamantino, the Chief of the Culture department at the Municipality of Povoa, stated, Povoa would rather skimp on repairs to its streets than give up the event that brings to literary world to this small spot on the Portuguese Atlantic coast.
Correntes d'Escritas 2003 was attended among others by the Chilean-born Luis Sepulveda, African writers Germano Almeida, Manuel Rui and Ana Paula Tavares, and Portuguese writers Lidia Jorge and Teolinda Gersao. Among the guests were also promoters and translators of Portuguese-language literatures: from Germany the academic and literary agent Ray-Güde Mertin and translator and editor of internet pages Nova Cultura, Michael Kegler, from France academic and translator Michel Laban, and from Austria the author and translator Martin Amanshauser, whose novel Nil, was being launched in Portuguese. Amanshauser has translated novels of the Portuguese writer Rui Zink, who was also present.
In a round table on the position of Iberophone literatures in Europe, the speakers identified as obstacles to wider dissemination of writing in Spanish and Portuguese the need to pigeonhole foreign titles to fit stereotypes, the lack of sympathetic, informed reviewers able to place books in a context for the readers, and the reluctance of publishers to take economic risks, a situation made even worse by the current recession. The round tables, lasting until 9 or 10 pm, merged in the hotel bar and international politics were very much on the agenda.
Read about promoting Portuguese-language writing in Germany in the next issue of Transcript.
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