Babel. Festival of literature and translation
15-18 September 2016 – Bellinzona, Switzerland
Babel 2016. Greater London
London, the great European city out of Europe, the Western metropolis with a Muslim mayor: capital of a Disunited Kingdom, epicentre of a fragmented Europe and of a world in transit.
London, a brutalist jungle beyond the Calais Jungle, a mix of migratory fluxes old and new, far and near: multicultural and monolingual, shaken but not stirred, London is a place of refuge and refusal.
The writers invited to Babel are true Londoners: Ma Jian and Xiaolu Guo, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Nadifa Mohamed, Sulaiman and Saleh Addonia, Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and Deborah Smith, Don Paterson, Annie Holmes and Meike Ziervogel, Chloe Aridjis, Alessandro Leogrande and Alganesh Fessaha.
Babel gives you a sneak peak at what is about to hit London: texts about to be published, up and coming editorial ventures and new translations, as well Babel’s newest projects, such as Poethreesome, OnAir BnB and “Specimen. The Babel Review of Translations”.
Babel is a literary festival focused on translation, both in the strict sense and as a metaphor for linguistic hospitality, crossings and encounters. It takes place each year in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
Each year there is a guest language or nation, taking the form of writers, artists, musicians and translators: Hungarian, Balcanic languages, United English of America, Russian, Mexican Spanish, the languages of Palestine, Polish and in 2013 French from Africa. Past editions have featured world-famous guests such as Derek Walcott, Amitav Ghosh, Mourid Barghouthi, Adam Zagajewski, Ismail Kadaré, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Jamaica Kincaid, Ljudmila Ulickaja, Ruben Gallego, The Tiger Lillies, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and András Keller. Babel has also helped several young writers get their texts translated and published by Swiss and Italian publishers and media.
Babel also offers a program of translations from different artistic languages with art exhibitions, films and concerts, as well as translation workshops, schools events, publications of new translations in books and magazines, events in other cities and countries.
In 2013 Babel was awarded two Swiss national book prizes by the Federal Office of Culture: the Swiss Literature Prize for translation and literary mediation and the Special JuryPrize.