Congrats to Kate and Daniel!

This is more of public congratulations post than anything else, but I think it’s exciting that Kate Griffin and Daniel Hahn have been named as interim co-directors of the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia.

The BCLT is one of the coolest translation centers in the world, and does a ton of cool stuff, such as hosting the International Literary Translation Summer School, putting on a series of events (including the annual Sebald Lecture, which is named after W. G. “Max” Sebald, who founded BCLT in 1989), and other activities supporting the professional development of literary translators.

Although I knew of both Kate and Daniel beforehand, I first met them at the Salzburg Global Seminar on Translation that took place in February 2009 in a palace where part of The Sound of Music was filmed. We had a great time discussing issues surrounding literature in translation, how to produce more of it, how to find more readers for great international works, etc. And we also had a great time in the bierstube laughing our asses off, playing table tennis, and occasionally acting like morons. (You can read all about it by clicking here.)

Anyway, Kate spent nine years at the Arts Council England as a literature officer with a special focus on translations and has also been judging the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Daniel is also an IFFP judge, and a translator from Portuguese and Spanish. He’s most well known for his translation of Angolan novelist José Eduardo Agualusa’s The Book of Chameleons, which won the IFFP in 2007.

Both are energetic, smart, fun people who will be great for the BCLT. Congrats!