Wales Literature Exchange welcomes four translators to Wales as part of a Schwob translation residency held at Tŷ Newydd National Writer’s Centre for Wales this week.

During the residency held between, January 5th – 10th 2015, translators from China, the Czech Republic, France and the Netherlands, will not only have the opportunity to translate literature from Wales but also discuss with experts and academics, visit places of significance to the works they have chosen to translate, and further their understanding of the literature scene in Wales.

• Katelijne de Vuyst from the Netherlands will translate work by Dylan Thomas and Dannie Abse;
• Dr Yan Ying, a lecturer in translation studies at Bangor University, and the editor of the special Welsh issue of Foreign Literature and Art, a leading Chinese review, will research ten possible books from Wales to be published in Chinese as a series by Shanghai Translation Publishing House;
• Marie-Thérèse Castay from France, will work on translation of A Toy Epic by Emyr Humphreys, a novel selected to the Schwob list of modern European classics.
• Tomas Mika from the Czech Republic is poet, translator and hip-hop performer and will translate work by R.S.Thomas.

Amongst writers, academics and experts meeting the translators are Llyr Gwyn Lewis, Nia Davies, editor of Poetry Wales, Tony Brown of Bangor University and Patrick McGuinness.

This is the second residency held by Wales Literature Exchange as part of the Schwob project. Schwob looks for modern classics and cult books which haven’t been widely translated. The project is a collaboration of literature foundations in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Helsinki, Krakow, the European Society of Authors, and Wales Literature Exchange.

Following the first Schwob residency held in January 2014, Emilia Ivancu’s Romanian translation of O! Tyn y Gorchudd (The Life of Rebecca Jones) by Angharad Price was published, while Marta Klonowska completed a Polish translation of Un Nos Ola Leuad (One Moonlight Night) by Caradog Prichard.

The project is supported by the European Union, whilst the residency was supported by Literature Wales.