Press releases

MINSK, 1 December (BelTA) – A number of Belarusian and Russian writers will meet in Minsk on 11-12 December to discuss the translation of literary works, BelTA learned from Yelena Stelmakh, First Deputy Chairwoman of the Union of Writers of Belarus.

A delegation of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute led by its rector Aleksei Varlamov has been invited by the Union of Writers of Belarus to visit Minsk. The guests will arrive to arrange a presentation of the house of national literatures, which was established in 2017 upon instructions of President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

The house of national literatures is supposed to offer a venue where writers from different countries can meet. It will host literature meetings, festivals, presentations, exhibitions, and workshops.

“The existence and development of multinational literature in the Soviet Union was definitely one of the positive signs of that period,” said Yelena Stelmakh. “Unfortunately, we have known little about what is going in in neighboring literatures for the last few decades. A drastic decrease in the number of translators is one of the reasons.”

A fiction translation department was once established as part of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in the USSR time to make translations from languages of the USSR peoples. The institute can become a translation center now. The matter will be discussed during the meeting of Belarusian and Russian writers.

A roundtable session with representatives of literature circles of Belarus, translators, students of language and literature, and young writers will be arranged as well. Prospects of cooperation will be discussed as well as the development of artistic ties between Belarusian and Russian writers and translators, the organization of a Belarusian group of translators in the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.

Prominent Russian writers will arrange workshops on poetry, prose, and fiction translation from the point of view of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.