MINUTES of the International Meeting of the PEN International Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee
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MINUTES of the international meeting of the PEN International Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee 21 st – 23 rd April 2015, Barcelona In Barcelona, on 21 st - 23 rd April 2015 the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of PEN International, met as previously arranged by its president, Simona Škrabec, and Catalan PEN. The following persons attended the meeting: Representatives of PEN International: TAKEAKI HORI, General Secretary of PEN International CARLES TORNER, Executive Director of PEN International SIMONA ŠKRABEC, President of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of PEN International Representatives of PEN centres: Basque PEN, MARIA COLERA INTXAUSTI Basque PEN, PETRA ELSER Chinese Independent PEN, BEI LING HUANG Esperanto PEN, GIORGIO SILFER Japanese PEN, TSUTOMU IDE Norwegian PEN, BENTE CHRISTENSEN Portuguese PEN, TERESA CADETE Puerto Rican PEN, JOSE E. MURATTI TORO Quebecois PEN, LOUIS JOLICOEUR Slovene PEN, MARJAN STROJAN South African PEN, ADRE MARSHALL Suisse-Romand PEN, ALIX PARODI Ukrainian PEN, ANDREY KURKOV Invited speakers: Andrey Kurkov, Writer, Ukraine Lluís Caelles, Journalist, Catalonia Invited consultants: DAVE PEARSON, SIL International ALEXANDRA BÜCHLER, Literature across Frontiers BEL OLID, CEATL JOSEP M. TERRICABRAS, former Chair of TLRC 1 Project presentations: Declaration of Québec, Québec congress (October 2015) Louis Jolicoeur, Québécois PEN Summit on European Language Diversity, San Sebastian (December 2016) Asier Basurto Arruti, Kontseilua, Basque Country Haizpea Abrisketa, Kontseilua, Basque Country Contact with PEN Centres about the meeting via e-mail: • Contributions and comments Basque PEN, Paul Bilbao Basque PEN, Urtzi Urrutikoetxea Basque PEN, Laura Mintegi Bolivia PEN, Biyú Suárez C. Chinese Independent PEN, Yu Zang Finnish PEN, Marianne Bargum Finnish PEN: Tiina Lehtoranta Québécois PEN, Sherry Simon Québécois PEN, Émile Martel Suisse-Romand PEN, Glorice Weinstein • Organisation issues Nepalese PEN, Prakash A. Ray Québécois PEN, Denise Pelletier San Miquel de Allende PEN, Gustav Murin San Miquel de Allende PEN, Lucina Kathman • Unable to attend Swiss Italian and Reto-Romansh PEN, Franca Tiberto Tibetian PEN, Fnu Lokdun • Interest in future collaboration Australian PEN Carol Dettmann Australian PEN, Dragana Zivancevic Croatian PEN, Tomica Bajsić Occitan PEN, Joan-Fréderic Brun Trieste PEN, Cecilia Prenz USA PEN, Michelle Franke Meyering Organisation of the meeting, Catalan PEN: Carme Arenas, President of Catalan PEN Raffaella Salierno, General Secretary of Catalan PEN Carlota Sas, Secretary of Catalan PEN 2 Esther Belvis, Coordinator TLRC Raquel Abad, Press manager, Catalan PEN Staff: Nicky Armstrong Maria Bosom Sara Serrano Valenzuela Catalina Girona Andríi Antonovskyi Simona Škrabec chaired the meeting and Esther Belvis, Maria Bosom and Nicky Armstrong acted as secretaries, as appointed by the participants. Next the points to be discussed, transcribed below, are addressed. These form the MEETING AGENDA Wednesday 22 nd April 10:00 Opening of the Assembly. 11:45 -13:30 Roundtable Discussion on ‘Written Word and Orality’. Speakers: Marjan Strojan (Slovene PEN), Petra Elsner (Basque PEN), Dave Pearson (SIL International). Chaired by Simona Škrabec. 11:30-11:45 Presentation of “Summit on European Language Diversity” by Asier Basurto I Haizpea Abrisketa. 15:30-17.00 Roundtable Discussion on ‘Literature and commercialisation’. Speakers: Bei Ling Huang (Chinese Independent PEN), José Enrique Muratti (Porto Rican PEN). Chaired by Bel Olid (CEATL). Thursday 23 rd April 9:30-10:15 Reports from the centres and other issues. 10:15-10:30 Presentation of Literature across Frontiers by Alexandra Büchler. 11:00-13:00 Debate about the Declaration of Québec . Chaired by Louis Jolicoeur. All the sessions took place in Barcelona, at Ateneu Barcelonés, 5 th floor, in the room “Aula dels Escriptors”. 3 WEDNESDAY 22 nd APRIL, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM The Committee’s president, SIMONA ŠKRABEC, welcomed the attendants. CARLES TORNER informed that PEN International is to have a new office in London. Although this has been a difficult financial year, it is expected that the renewal of SIDA funds will soon guarantee more stability to the organisation and will help to expand and promote the PEN mission in Africa and Latin America. In the case of Africa, a major participation of the Centres in this continent is expected. PEN International is currently running Education and Civil Society programmes there. One of the strengths of the work being developed is that choices are made from the ground i.e. the centres decide the topic they want to work on. For the last 2-3 years, centres have been focusing on School Education (literary education, advocacy and freedom of expression, etc.). These projects have clear links with the work of the TLRC. In this regard, a new dynamic with and within the African Centres has been created including the creation of new centres. This year the Eritrea writers in Exile was created and it is expected that at least two more centres can be welcomed at the Congress in Québec, the Mauritanian centre and the Mali centre. The PAN-African meeting that was planned before summer 2015 was not possible to organise due to the financial situation of PEN International. The former agreement with SIDA ended in December 2014 and new funds are not available as of yet. That is why this year the meeting of TLCR is taking place in Barcelona and not in Africa, coinciding with the Pan- African meeting, as agreed by the Board at the congress in Bishkek. For PEN International it is a priority that the TLRC meeting is held somewhere outside Europe in order to have more participation from the Latin American and Africa centres. It was expected that the South African PEN Centre would organise this years meeting although it did not happen. CARLES TORNER thanked the Catalan PEN for the organisation of this meeting with such short notice and for their financial support to make it possible. The summit of the Americas was very successful. It will guide the actions of International PEN in the forthcoming years. The programme for this region refers also to the indigenous languages. Some centres such as the Canadian centre are already working in this respect. On the other hand, the Bishkek congress also helped to promote the visibility of the Asian centres. PEN International is currently undertaking a research project funded by UNESO that is taking place in Kenya, Nigeria, Haiti and Serbia. This research project is designed to promote minority languages in the publishing industries of these four countries. Besides the research, there is also the creation of a network with the local publishers. One of the new strategies that PEN is going to undertake is to propose a three-year campaign addressing a specific issue. This would help to position PEN internationally. At the Amsterdam conference, we will have the chance to explore topics for this big campaign. In 4 this regard, the TLRC could be the umbrella for that campaign. This would give the organization a clear strand of work for the forthcoming years. TAKEAKI HORI informed about the importance of the elections that will take place in Québec, where the new President will be elected. Two board members will be also replaced. Regarding the President, he expressed his satisfaction for having been able to work with John Ralston Saul during the last seven years. He has been a good president with excellent diplomatic skills. The new, yet to be elected, president has to be someone that understands the mission of PEN and promotes solidarity between the centres. All the centres can propose candidates. Elisabeth Norgreen, who is responsible for the Search Committee, is looking for candidates to present. PEN International encourages the centres to propose candidates for the presidency, make alliances, and try to promote them. Until now, there has never had a woman as president; this would be a good time for that if a suitable candidate is found. CARLES TORNER added that other possible funders, like international NGOs such as Human Watch, etc are considering PEN International. There is a need to make visible the features that show the potential of PEN. PEN is a well-rooted organisation with 150 centres all over the world. In addition, the accent on linguistic rights makes PEN very different from any other organisation. In this regard, PEN are covering issues that other organisations are not addressing. SIMONA ŠKRABEC reported that the database of the centres participating in this Committee has been updated. The number of responses was satisfactory, but the Committee still has problems communicating with centres. It is crucial that the centres communicate to the Chair any changes to the contact persons responsible for the activities in this Committee. There was, unfortunately, some problems in the communication with the San Miquel de Allende PEN Centre which have now been satisfactorily resolved. The Committee chair received a letter from the Nepal PEN regretting that the meeting is again organised in Barcelona. Nepal PEN proposed themselves as a hosting centre for the future. (The letter from Prakash A. Raj reached PEN before the earthquake that happened just after the Barcelona meeting. PEN would like to express here solidarity with the Nepalese people.) Other centres that showed interest in a closer collaboration for the future and were unable to attend this meeting were Australian PEN (Carol Dettman, Dragana Zivancevic), Bolivia PEN (Biyú Suárez), Croatian PEN (Tomica Bajsić), Finish PEN (Marianne Bargum, Tiina Lehoranta), Trieste PEN (Cecilia Prenz) and USA PEN (Franke Mayering). At the last moment, Franca Tiberto from Swiss Italian and Reto-Romansh PEN had to cancel her participation due to personal reasons. Fnu Lokdun from Tibet PEN was not able to come to Barcelona because he did not obtain his visa in time. He sent a letter explaining the current situation in Tibet, which will be posted on the webzine Visat. 5 One of the challenges of the TLRC is to become stable and be able to develop a long-term collaboration.