Over the past twenty years, Catalan culture has given the world some remarkably unique creators: the urban music of Rosalía to Jordi Savall, a leading figure in the world of ancient European and Mediterranean music; the artworks of Miquel Barceló and the sculptures of Jaume Plensa, present at emblematic sites around the world; the iconoclast photographer Joan Fontcuberta (winner of the Hasselblad Prize in 2013); the literary-genre films of Agustí Villaronga and the avant-garde cinema of Albert Serra; and the architectural feats of the RCR firm (winner of the 2017 Pritzker Prize) and Carme Pinós. In the realm of innovative gastronomy, Ferran Adrià is a truly international phenomenon.
In literature, the Catalan-language authors who have had the greatest international impact in the twenty-first century are novelists Albert Sánchez Piñol and Jaume Cabré. Among the new authors now being noticed are Irene Solà, poet, novelist, and artist, and Eva Baltasar, poet and novelist.
Describe the structure of your organization and its goal(s). How many staff members does it employ and what are their main activities?
The Institut Ramon Llull is a public body founded in 2002. Behind it is a consortium made up of the Government of Catalonia, the Government of the Balearic Islands, and the Barcelona City Council. The Institute’s goals are to develop Catalan language and cultural studies in universities worldwide (Language Department), promote the translation of Catalan literature into other languages (Literature Department), and support Catalan cultural production in such disciplines as music, theater, dance, circus, cinema, visual arts, design, and architecture (Arts Department). The Institute is staffed by sixty-one employees.
Specifically, in the Literature Department, our nine-person staff works to achieve the overall goal of the Institut Ramon Llull, which is to internationalize Catalan literature, through three lines of activity: one, increasing the number of Catalan literary translations into other languages; two, strengthening ties and encouraging exchange among Catalan literary authors and agents and their international peers; and three, facilitating and improving the training of literary translators from Catalan into other languages, while also encouraging the emergence of new translators.
How much funding does your organization disburse in a year and where does the funding come from?
The Institute’s 2020 budget totalled 9.3 million euros, while the budget managed by the Literature Department was 970,000 euros.
Nearly all of the Institute’s funding comes from the contributions made by two of the institutions that make up the consortium: the Government of Catalonia and the Government of the Balearic Islands. The Institute’s entire budget is publicly funded.
Including the one just announced in October 2021, as many as five Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded to writers working in English in the past decade alone. Translation into English has also been a crucial factor for many of the winners to receive consideration in the first place. In light of this linguistic hegemony, I imagine that there is an increased focus on translation into English, the costs of which can’t be met by market demand alone. Given your own institution’s limited resources, what criteria do you use to choose which authors to fund, and, given the sources of your funding, are there certain considerations factored into your selection?
Yes, we’re definitely aware of the linguistic hegemony of English, the global language of our times. After having supported translations into other languages (German, French, Spanish, and Italian) in recent years through specific actions in those markets, we are now working to promote Catalan literary translations into English. This is precisely the aim of the Catalan Culture Spotlight project at the London Book Fair 2022, where there will be a match-making program between Catalan publishers and agencies and British and American publishers, to expedite the purchasing and selling of rights to Catalan literary works.
When it comes to deciding which authors to publish, you have to bear in mind that it’s always the publishers who choose the authors they want to translate. The publishing houses apply for translation grants from the Institute for any original Catalan-language literary work that they plan to translate and publish. International literary festivals also have the last word on the authors they invite. The criteria followed by our grant evaluation committee mainly have to do with providing special support to classic authors (for the protection of our literary heritage) as well as works of nonfiction, poetry, and theater—literary genres that occupy a more peripheral position in the publishing market, far from the central place held by works of fiction. That said, and as is to be expected, most of the works that international publishers request translation grants for are fiction—novels and short stories.
A literary ecosystem not only includes writers and translators, but also editors, reviewers, publishers, literary agents, and booksellers, all of who play a role in fostering a vibrant literary scene. Bearing this in mind, how would you describe the state of the literary ecosystem in your country (e.g., is it healthy, in your opinion)? Does any part of your funding go toward supporting the wider literary infrastructure (as opposed to just writers and translators)? If there was a local equivalent of a magazine with a global focus like Asymptote, would it receive any ongoing support from your organization, for example?
Today, the Catalan literary ecosystem is in good shape in terms of publications, translations and, in recent years, even sales. We must place this optimistic perspective on its own scale, and understand that Catalan is a language that does not have the support of the states where it lives. There are dysfunctions derived from the historical and political context, such as the discontinuities among Catalan-speaking territories. There is also, of course, the energy that has to be expended on the educational or communication system, where Catalan suffers ongoing erosion. The struggle of Catalan writers to create new spaces in fiction and nonfiction, in poetry, drama or screenwriting, is constant. Sometimes the reception is less than what could be hoped for. The same goes for our literary heritage and its necessary revision and updates. Despite all this, there is a will to exist and remain, an admirable spirit of construction and projection toward the future. Not that this will is part of the ecosystem . . . I would dare to say that it’s the spirit of the ecosystem.
The beneficiaries of grants are publishers and festivals, but they don't keep the money—the amounts awarded are meant for paying authors’ fees and expenses, and for covering translators’ fees and expenses. There are other institutions in the Catalan literary ecosystem that back local authors, such as publishers, literary agencies, or booksellers (through the Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies, ICEC), or authors, translators (from other languages into Catalan), libraries and authors’ and translators’ associations (through the Institution for Catalan Literature, ILC).
If a journal like Asymptote were published in Catalan, it couldn’t receive any support from our institute, as that is outside the remit of the Institute. But it could be assisted by another Catalan entity that offers support to cultural and literary periodicals.
Funding decisions can sometimes be controversial. Tell us about a funding decision by your institute in the past ten years or so that elicited controversy, describing the fallout and explaining both sides.
It was very hard to apply—both throughout the Institute and in the Literature Department—the budgetary cutbacks brought in by the Catalan government as a result of the 2008 financial crisis (the consequences of which became manifest in 2011). We had to keep the priority programs going in the literature area and reduce or cancel those that were less relevant. That meant having to give up some long-term projects in which a wealth of resources and hours of work had been invested. Such movements are not always well-received, especially among those who are impacted directly. These decisions were painful, and at the Institute we did everything in our power to keep the effects from becoming too severe.
It was also difficult to modify some budget items in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, and the growing difficulties in international mobility (losing job opportunities) for artists and creators, while we also had to learn to work as a team remotely, no longer having a shared work space, or the benefits of physical presence.
The sitcom Seinfeld was notably a flop in Germany. Similarly, authors who encounter success in one culture sometimes do not receive the same reception in another. What are some surprising crossover successes or failures you have encountered in your tenure with this institution and what do you think might have led to these outcomes?
True, some Catalan authors who are successful in the Catalan market do not get their work translated into other languages, and some get translated in a lesser proportion than others who don’t have the same recognition in the Catalan market.
That is because the identity, logic, and reasoning behind a given culture are not the same traits that make up another. When translating any work, this cultural core at the center of all literary creation should also be translated. But sometimes, the cultural core can’t be translated and ends up lost in the work’s passage to another language. It’s a cultural gap, not a personal one. Therefore, this work cannot reach a reader in another language or culture in the same conditions. The specificities of a culture don’t necessarily fit within another culture. Therefore, not all literary works get circulation and reception in a significant number of languages.
I can’t give you any specific examples of flops because generally our activities don’t involve personal proposals. Without meaning to dodge the question, I would sooner refer to lines of activity that have evolved over time. Being keenly aware of the difficulties of a global market means keeping a reasonable level of expectations at all times.
What are some recent challenges you have faced advocating for your region’s literature and how has your institution adapted to meet these challenges?
Catalan culture is positioned in between two major states (Spain and France) that are culturally powerful and highly influential in international culture and literature.
We form part of a culture plagued by interruptions, both geographical (Catalan is spoken in a number of territories: Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Andorra, Roussillon, la Franja, and Alguer) and historical; it has risen and fallen at various times throughout its history. Now, Catalan culture is enmeshed in power dynamics that are unfavourable to its interests. On occasion, it has had to swim against the tide.
So, Catalan culture faces many of the same challenges found in other countries with similar situations, and we’ve decided to tackle them with a multifaceted organization like the Institut Ramon Llull, which integrates activities and subjects that in other countries are spread out over a number of entities. The Institute also benefits from a lightweight structure; for instance, we only have four offices outside Catalonia. That makes us highly adaptable to the constant economic, political, and social changes of today’s world. A culture’s identity is also forged by the challenges it must face.
Tell us about your proudest accomplishments as an institution in the past ten years. I’d be particularly interested to hear about any campaigns that your institution conceived to advocate for your region’s literature.
Two recent activities have rendered excellent results. One was the focus on Catalan literature at the 2017 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, which is meant to promote children’s and young adults’ literature, and illustrated books. The other was the 2019 Buenos Aires International Book Fair, under the theme “Barcelona, literary city.” Bologna helped us show the world the robustness and internationalization of the illustrated children’s book industry in Catalan-speaking territories. Buenos Aires enabled us to boost the presence of the literature created in Barcelona and Catalonia in the literary markets of Argentina and its neighboring countries.
Another unique international event that we think will be a success is the one we are now preparing, the Catalan Culture Spotlight at the 2022 London Book Fair, the aim of which is to promote translations of Catalan literary works in the publishing markets of English-speaking countries.
These big meetings are landmark events. But their foundation, and continuity, is the growing consolidation of annual literary projects: grants, regular attendance at international book fairs, organizing the fellowship for international publishers and agents in Barcelona, and the dissemination of key information on Catalan literature, among other things. This circuit of special events and ordinary background work creates a permanent feedback loop, through which Catalan authors and literary works are becoming known in an increasing number of countries, thus reaching a growing body of readers.
In his Nobel Lecture, Kazuo Ishiguro exhorted us to “widen our common literary world to include many more voices from beyond our comfort zones of the elite first-world cultures. We must search more energetically to discover the gems from what remain today unknown literary cultures, whether the writers live in far away countries or within our own communities.” Yet, in one crucial respect, this ideal of an inclusive world literature shares the same problem as the climate crisis or even the COVID-19 vaccine crisis: countries that have the means to do something about a global situation often end up looking out for their own interests. How do you think institutional advocates of a region’s literature might be better allies for world literature, if they might even play a role at all?
Sure, institutions and organizations that advocate for their literature may have a role to play in the construction of a world literature that is open, diverse, and inclusive.
It is true that the inertia of national interests is very strong. But it is no less true that cultural projects exist that, by their very nature, may be significant steps toward the reinforcement of a world literature that is more permeable to voices that are not speaking from positions of power. This could be bettered with exchanges among authors from two or more countries, international residencies in which authors can work together and get to know each other at the same time, and even certain research projects, if done in cooperation with international bodies that can guarantee contributions from diverse sources.
In the construction of this inclusive world literature, a relevant ethical component must prevail that is twofold in nature: one, resistance to the erosion of one’s own culture by global hegemonic English-language culture (and by other regional hegemonic languages) and, two, the will to share literary creations by authors from one’s own culture with readers around the world. Literature speaks all languages, expresses all cultures, and listens to all voices.
