Media Release
For immediate release
June 7, 2005
Yann Martel, Joseph Boyden immersed in Banff Centre literary translation program
Public Reading - Yann Martel
June 21, 7:30 p.m.
Rolston Recital Hall, The Banff Centre, Free
Yann Martel, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Life of Pi, will give a public reading of new material at The Banff Centre June 21 to mark his participation in the 2005 Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC) program. He will be in Banff to work with the German, Bulgarian, and Israeli translators of his 1993 story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios.
The only program of its kind in North America, BILTC affords literary translators a period of uninterrupted work within an international community of translators. Directed by Montreal-based translator Linda Gaboriau, the program is open to literary translators from Canada, Mexico, and the United States translating from any language, and to international translators working on literature from the Americas. During the three-week program, from June 13 to July 2, participants gather for workshops and discussions with senior translators, other participating translators, and invited authors.
A new initiative of the program this year has been to incorporate a training element by inviting three graduate students of literary translation, sponsored by a university in Canada, the United States, and Mexico respectively. The senior translators in residence as faculty will be Patricia Godbout, literary translator and professor at Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Carlos Montemayor, award-winning Mexican poet, novelist and literary translator, and Rainer Schulte, distinguished U.S. translator and editor of Translation Review, published by the University of Texas at Dallas.
The program has attracted the collaboration of a growing number of acclaimed Canadian writers, this year including Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road, Quebec writers Larry Tremblay and Madeleine Gagnon, Paul Anderson, author of Hunger’s Brides, and PEN Canada writer Andrea Hila.
This year’s projects include 17 translators from 10 countries working in 13 languages including Albanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Lithuanian, Ojibwa, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tzotzil. The projects include several genres: poetry, novels, short stories, Aboriginal myths, and drama.
For more information on the Banff International Literary Translation Centre: http://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/program.aspx?id=220
Media Contact
Jill Sawyer
Media and Communications Officer, The Banff Centre
403.762.6475