TOLEDO - Translators for cultural exchange
Since its inception in 2018, the TOLEDO program has established itself as the international branch and digital workshop of the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds. TOLEDO creates a space for encounters between the German-language and international translation scenes, and empowers literary translators to become active in their role as ambassadors between cultures and linguistic realms.
The program pays special attention to supporting translators of German literature, be it through grants or international workshops. With its “digital expansion of the translation zone,” the TOLEDO program sets the stage for new translation discourses, developing new formats for events, platforms, and networking possibilities. Thus, the JOURNAL series has given rise to an archive of translation in the here and now, and the series TOLEDO TALKS to a forum for debate that presents translators as active social contributors and brings their knowledge into current international discourses. This digital expansion is supported by funds from the Federal Government’s NEUSTART KULTUR program.
TOLEDO takes up the long tradition of European translation culture which in the Middle Ages shaped places like the Castilian city that gives the program its name. Over time, the legends entwined around Toledo have given the name almost mythical overtones: as a symbol of tolerance and a place of cooperative work, where bridges were built between scholarship and religion, between West and East. The TOLEDO program has arisen from longstanding cooperation between the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds and the Robert Bosch Foundation and targets the translators of today who engage in sometimes politically volatile cultural interactions, and who breathe new life into the “dream of Toledo.”
The Deutscher Übersetzerfonds, founded in 1997, supports the work of literary translators through a range of grants, its “Academy for the Art of Translation,” as well as through initiatives and projects that reflect on literary translation, make it visible to the public and frame it a productive part of cultural education. The Deutscher Übersetzerfonds belongs to the six cultural funds supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media. It also receives regular support from the Foreign Office and the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States.