Romania's Cultural Institute announces new translations initiative, criticizes previous policy

Romania's Cultural Institute (ICR) has announced a new initiative to translate works by Romanian writers into other languages. At the same time, the ICR has attacked previous policies on translation and the choice of books that gained support from the Cultural Institute in the past. “Overall, the choice was restricted to certain types of translations and well known authors, thus missing the big picture,” reads a statement from the ICR. The new initiative is based around three key points. First, the ICR aims to cooperate with Romanian authors, the Romanian Academy and other cultural institutions to produce a “more representative” list of works for translation. Second, the ICR is to reorganize the jury selecting candidates for translation, with more authors to be part of the decision making team. Finally, the ICR wants to include a broad range of topics among the translations, including literature, science, philosophy and theology. According to the ICR, presenting the breadth and depth of works by Romanian writers to international audiences is vital for the country's image on the world stage. However, the head of the ICR Andrei Marga said after his appointment earlier this year that Institute should do more to promote Romania and Romanians in the fields of science and technology, economics, politics, engineering and law, suggesting that the balance had been too much in favor of the arts. editor@romania-insider.com