Following five intense days in which 20 parallel language-specific and multi-language workshops were interspersed with taster sessions on genres and the publishing industry, attendees agreed that the joy of translating together easily outweighed any Zoom and Microsoft Teams fatigue. Translators and language enthusiasts joined the online translation summer school from 28 countries around the world, sometimes getting up at 3am to work with leading literary translators into English.  

When asked for their main take-away, the experience of literary translation being a supportive community came out strongly in the answers. “Never give up,” “Be bold,” “Put yourself out there” –participants gained the confidence to see themselves as emerging translators.  

Recordings of Professor Susan Bassnett’skeynote lecture and of a specialist panel discussion on translators’ rights and obligations are now available on YouTube.  

Bristol Translates awarded full scholarships to 15 participants including two Ukrainian translators. Comma Press ran its emerging translator competition, specialising in Chinese this year, and Bristol Translates participant Florence Taylor took away the prize.  

Social media was aflutter when the poetry translation workshop translated bird song into English and when French tutor and International Booker chair Frank Wynne surprised his workshop participants with a chapbook of their translation. German workshop participant Helen Nurse wrote about her experiences on the Emerging Translators Network blog.