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Cooperation Instead of Competition
KKA interviews Antje Contius about future-oriented strategies in the field of literature. Excerpts from the interview.
KKA
Since 2008, the network TRADUKI has been bringing together authors, translators and publishers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Eastern Europe. What is so special about this programme?
Contius
First of all, TRADUKI is a joint initiative of the three German-speaking countries and second, it is also a joint initiative of both governmental and non-governmental institutions and private organisations in these three countries. (...) Another special characteristic of the programme is that it subsidises translations in three directions: from German into South Eastern European languages, from these languages into German, and also – and this is something very special in the context of a support programme with third countries – between the various languages within South Eastern Europe. A fourth distinctive feature, moreover, is that the initiators of TRADUKI are committed to the principle of cultivating partnership on equal terms both with the participating publishers in the South Eastern European countries and with the participating translators. The translators play a particularly important role in the project as cultural mediators, which is why supporting their work is a central element of the programme.
KKA
What advantages do you see in networking in the style of TRADUKI – particularly in terms of alliances between publishers that are usually rivals?
Contius
One might possibly be so presumptuous as to speak of alliances between participating publishers from different countries in relation to the subsidised translations in three different directions, to the extent that TRADUKI has succeeded in promoting cross-border contacts and cooperation in a region where being neighbours by no means necessarily entails any kind of close relations. However, competition between publishers in an individual country and thus in the same book market has its own laws, in which TRADUKI would not presume to interfere.
KKA
Are partner meetings still useful in the Web 2.0 era or have they perhaps become outdated? Why not just meet in virtual spaces in order to establish networks – wouldn’t that save time and expense?
Contius
A project like TRADUKI lives from, and in, ongoing communication: between the organisers and decision-makers, the various participants, publishers, translators, agents, sponsors – it’s a beehive. Without the World Wide Web and its derivatives, nothing would work – which is an important reason why we have an extensive and meticulously maintained 11-language website: www.traduki.eu. But: all that is everyday operations, which can only succeed if the project organisers and initiators regularly meet with each other and with the many different partners and participants in person: they need to literally sit down at the same table and look each other in the eye.
Antje Contius studied Slavic languages and literature and Eastern European history in Münster, Freiburg, Frankfurt/Main, Moscow, Warsaw and Sofia. In 1993 she became the Leipzig Trade Fair’s consultant for Eastern Europe and the Middle East and from 1995 to 1998 served as its director. She is a freelance editor of Eastern European literature for publishers in Switzerland and Germany. Antje Contius began working with the S. Fischer Stiftung in 2002 and has been its CEO since 2008.
