Six theatre texts by Flemish authors to be translated

Six theatre texts by authors from Flanders are going to be translated into German, French, English and Spanish with funding from Flanders Literature. This new annual project grant gives writers the opportunity to have one of their texts translated from Dutch in full.

The grant will be used to attach an accredited translator to the project and to pay them for their translation work. The authors, translators and other parties involved can then bring the completed translation to the attention of foreign publishers, theatre companies and agents. It is hoped that this will result in the publication and/or staging of the text.

The first round of applications for this grant took place in 2020. Flanders Literature received ten in total, which were assessed on the strength of their content and in light of the available budget. We also sought to achieve a balanced mix of target languages, source texts and authors.

In the end, the following six promising projects were selected.

• Two texts will be translated into German: Ira Wilhelm will be translating ‘Het Kanaal’ by Gaea Schoeters, while Christine Bais will be working on Nico Boon’s Komt op/Gaat af.
• ‘The Wetsuitman’ by Freek Mariën and ‘Paradise Blues’ by Jessa Wildemeersch will be translated into English by David McKay and Paul Evans respectively.
• Thanks to Julio Grande Morales we will soon be able to read Tom Lanoye’s ‘Wie is bang’ in Spanish.
• Finally, Esther Gouarné is going to translate ‘Huid’ by Michael Bijnens into French.