The Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage today announced funding of $1 million for New Zealand writers and their publishers to ensure they are able to make the most of New Zealand’s Guest of Honour role at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair.
The funding is to enhance New Zealand writers’ international profiles and to increase translation of New Zealand books. German publishers will be able to apply for subsidies to translate New Zealand books as part of the funding scheme, while a portion of the funds will be used to support New Zealand writers and publishers to attend German literary events in 2012.
“This funding will enable more New Zealand works to be translated into German and grow an international audience and appetite for our work,” said New Zealand’s Frankfurt Book Fair Project Director Tanea Heke.
The first of the German literary events is the Leipzig Book Fair in March 2012 which will showcase nine New Zealand writers supported by the fund.
In many cases these writers already have books translated into German or the German translation rights have recently been purchased. Six New Zealand publishers will also attend the fair.
“The Leipzig Book Fair in March is an important launch for the programme. We are taking authors to Leipzig who have already gained interest from German publishers. This is in part a success of the rights catalogue the industry produced for the Frankfurt Book fair this year. We hope their presence at Leipzig will secure further translation deals for New Zealand,” said PANZ President, Kevin Chapman.
To find out more about New Zealand’s role at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair:
For publisher and author funding information and criteria: http://www.publishers.org.nz
For New Zealand’s 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair Guest of Honour role and activities: www.nzatfrankfurt.govt.nz
For the Frankfurt Book Fair history and overview:
Footnote:
Photo at top shows crowd at 2011 Fair.
3 comments:
Wonderful. 1 Million NZ$ translate into something like 580.000 Euros. To think that this should be sufficient to boost translations and exposure of NZ writers is, at best, naive.
Has nobody thought about production times for literary translations? We are talking about two years between decision and publication.
To think a reputable German publisher could be made to rush a translation job through just to get a trifling amount of subsidy tastes of profound ignorance and superior arrogance.
The project is dramatically late, it is severely underfunded and absurdely under-networked in Germany.
You are heading straight up a certain creek without a certain instrument. What a massive opportunity wasted.
(In case you wish to know: I was VP Corp. Communications of the Frankfurt Book Fair until the end of 2005. And I was in charge of the Guest of Honour programmes).
“Thank you for your thoughts Holger. With a total planned investment in Guest of Honour of around $6 million dollars, and probably more to come, the various partners (the NZ government, Frankfurt Book Fair, Publishers Association of NZ) do not believe the programme to be underfunded. The $1 million is only for one part of it. We are already seeing a substantial response out of German publishers around NZ books for translations. We do not believe that we are either ignorant or arrogant, just working very hard to deliver a good Guest of Honour programme that will meet the needs of the Book Fair and of the New Zealanders who are investing in it.”
@Kevin: That's alright then. Good luck.
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