Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics announced the start of the competition for recognising the best Latvian and Estonian-language translators. The winner of the competition will be announced in February 2013.
Foreign Minister Urmas Paet stated that through awarding a translation prize, we hope to inspire more translations of Estonian literature into Latvian and vice versa. “We call on all translators who translate from Estonian to Latvian of from Latvian to Estonian to participate in the competition,” said Paet.
The Estonian-Latvian and Latvian-Estonian translation prize emphasises the importance of the Estonian and Latvian languages as well as cultural exchange in order to advance the professionalism of translators of literature as well as political, popular science, historical, sociological, and other texts.
The monetary value of the award is 3 000 euros, to which both sides are contributing equally. The jury will contain representatives from the foreign ministries of the two countries and the director of each nation’s literature information centre.
The agreement that established the Estonian-Latvian and Latvian-Estonian translation award was signed by Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Latvian Foreign Minister Māris Riekstiņš on 18 February 2009. The idea for the creation of the award came from Estonian Ambassador to LatviaJaak Jõerüüt and Latvian Ambassador to Estonia Kārlis Eihenbaums, who presented a joint letter proposing the implementation of the idea to the foreign ministries of both countries at the end of 2008.
In previous years the prize has been awarded to translators Maima Grīnberga (2009), Guntars Godinš (2010), and Kalev Kalkun (2011).
Nominees for the translation competition can be submitted through the application form found on the Foreign Ministry’s website: www.vm.ee/sites/default/files/.... The deadline for nominations is 1 February 2013
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