Translation Is No Child's Play: Translator's Workshop "Kein Kinderspiel"

Group picture of the participants 2010

Since 2010, the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur (IBBY Germany) and the financial sponsor, the non-profit Robert Bosch Foundation, organize an annual workshop for translators who translate German language children's literature into their native tongue. This is a model project that invites imitation around the world. Books for children and young people open the door to the world of reading and expand the horizons of young readers both culturally and linguistically. In this way books can make a significant contribution to international understanding.

The translators' workshop is dedicated specifically to German-language children's and young adult literature. Its goal is to encourage a high quality and large quantity of translations of German-language books into other languages. In the process of overcoming language barriers, translators play a fundamental role. At the translators' workshop they are given the opportunity to discuss problems of translating with each other. They have the opportunity to meet publishers, authors, illustrators and other mediators of literature. They acquire an overview of the latest German-language children's and young people's books. They can learn more about the working conditions of translators in Germany and about subsidy programs, such as fellowships and grants for special projects. They get to know the current networks in which translators keep themselves informed and exchange information.

Participants

Any professionally active literary translator with work experience who has already translated children's or young adult books from German is eligible to apply to the Translators' Workshop. Normally the next workshop is announced in April via the Internet. It is posted on the sites of the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur and the Robert Bosch Foundation. Held annually at a conference center in Hamburg, the workshop lasts six days. All expenses in Hamburg are paid and a travel grant of up to 300 Euros can be applied for. At each year's workshop, 15 translators may take part. For the three workshops held so far, over 230 applications from 50 countries were received. Obviously there is considerable interest in and a need for advanced training in the translation of children's and young adult literature. The 45 applicants who have been selected up to this year come from 27 different countries. Ninety percent of the participants were female, which also corresponds to the male-female ratio among the applicants.

Group picture of the participants 2010

Activities

When we held the first workshop in 2010, we set off on an unfamiliar path. We asked ourselves what translators of children's books would be especially interested in. Of course, foremost of all were the literary problems. For this reason, working with texts was on the agenda every morning. The responsibility for this part of the workshop fell to Tobias Scheffel, who is an experienced and well-recognized German translator. He has translated numerous children's and young people's books from French into German. In 2011, he won the Special Award of the German Children's Literature Award for his lifetime achievements.

It was deemed important to take into account the fact that the participants did not share a common target language. Each of them was translating into a different language. Hence, the results of their translations from German could not be compared and discussed. As a consequence, the workshop focused on the very basic issues of translation. Prior to arriving in Hamburg, the participants submitted items of text with which they had had particular difficulty in translating. They had to explain what the problem was and what solution had been found for it. It was feared that this method might not work, because the participants came from different countries and cultural backgrounds. However, this concern proved to be completely baseless. The participating translators often brought up similar problems and readily put themselves in the shoes of their colleagues. In the discussion rounds, solutions were then searched for together, while overcoming the boundaries of language. Experience and creativity often led to surprising and original results, which...