International Writers’ and Translators’ House
It is a building of 18th century in 13 Annas street, where the Town Hall was placed in 1850 and many years it was home of Ventspils excursion office. In August 2006 there was opened the International Writers’ and Translators’ House, where Latvian and foreign writers and translators are on visit regularly.
www.visitventspils.com
The International Writers and Translators' House is a non-profit organizations aimed at creation of an international multi-functional centre for writers and translators in Latvia to further the development of literature, encourage intercultural dialogue, promote local literary processes on the international level, as well as to facilitate decentralization of literature development process in Latvia, thus creating a favourable cultural environment in the regions.
The House offers writers and translators:
- a creative work space in Ventspils, one of the most beautiful Latvian cities on the Baltic Sea;
- an opportunity to live and work in the House for 4 weeks;
- an opportunity to discover Ventspils, a city where history meets tomorrow, and the coast of the Baltic Sea, one of the most attractive and inspiring coastlines in Europe;
- an opportunity to meet other writers and translators from Latvia, the Baltic states, Europe and other places all over the world;
- an opportunity to take part in creative cooperation projects, e.g. festivals, seminars, etc.
The House is also open for seminars, conferences, experience exchange workshops and other creative events.
Address: 13, Annas Str., Ventspils. Telephone: +371 63623595
ventspils.lv
ventspilshouse.lv
Writers and translators often maintain that their real home is language. In whatever tongue they speak or create, wherever they live or travel, ultimately their only real home is language-both a rational and an irrational miracle, which helps them recreate reality: to give voice to, and to tell of, their own experience and that of the world through poetry, prose, drama and translation.
The English author Virginia Woolf proposed that writers need few worldly goods in order to create-just money and a room of their own. This need is more keenly felt in today’s society, where a writer, like everyone else, is caught up in the nervous flow of daily life. It is, therefore, no wonder that creative centres for writers and translators have become so highly valued and well-loved, particularly in Europe. For a short while, you are away from your usual existence, from the everyday and life’s responsibilities, and can allow yourself the pleasure of being a full-time writer. You recreate reality and are together with colleagues: brothers and sisters in language. You feel calm in the knowledge that in this rational and pragmatic world there are many others who, like you, devote themselves to the difficult, beautiful and exclusive task that is working with language.
The Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby, Gotland, Ledig House in America, Casa Pantrovà in Switzerland, the Writers’ and Translators’ House in Käsmu, Estonia, and many, many others are now joined by Ventspils Writers’ and Translators’ House in Latvia.
Here, on the vast world map, is another place where language lives, where experiences meet, where each writer tells the same ancient mystery-of life, death and love-in his or her own language. The historic former town hall, located on the square between the renewed city library and the Lutheran church, has been remodelled as a centre for writers and translators from around the world, providing an opportunity for them to meet and work.
The writers’ studies have modern facilities but have not lost a touch of history and are ready to offer a warm haven to the Ventspils House language-travellers. The inner garden and sauna create a feeling that the process of writing has some connection to faith and divine revelation, accompanied by a succumbing to some sinful joys...
Here, everything is in one place-solitude and conversation, work and respite, daily bread and wine.
When weary of work, residents can wander round Ventspils-a well-maintained coastal city, where, in each house, street, yard and square, the past is just as important as the future. Having walked through a green park, the language-traveller suddenly finds himself on the beach. He is free to go wherever his eye takes him, in one direction or the other-kilometres of beautiful, white, sandy coastline stretch into the far distance: just the sky and sea on one side, a strip of green forest on the other, and the walker, who treads the sand and opens his mind to the creative moment.
Who knows, perhaps this century’s most beautiful literary stories of life and love will be created right here, at the Ventspils house of language. Let it happen!
www.ventspilshouse.lv
