In the modern world filled with a variety of technologies and network space, fortunately, the popularity of modern literature has not died out. For this reason, the Eurasian Creative Guild (London), together with the Hertfordshire Press, has been conducting the annual international competition “Open Eurasia” since 2012, within the framework of which the award for translators «BelRoss» is included.
The translation is one of the important links in the literary process. How would we read Shakespeare, Dumas, Kafka, Andersen, Hemingway and many other foreign writers without a literary translation? And the international success of Russian and Belarusian literature is impossible to imagine without translations into other languages of Leo Tolstoy, Fedor Dostoyevsky, Yakub Kolas, Ivan Shamyakin. The translation is a bridge between our worlds.
The prize of the Belarusian-Russian Union «BelRoss» was established by the Belarusian public figure and philanthropist Oleg Nesterkov in 2019 and is awarded for first place in the Translation category within the framework of the «Open Eurasia» contest. In the last year, 1200 applications were submitted for the competition: 200 authors reached the final, 12 laureates were awarded. Authors from Russia, Kazakhstan, the USA, France, Kyrgyzstan, Belgium, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan took part in the «Translation» category. The winner was Maria Kevaeva, a representative of the Russian Federation. The announcement of the results took place in Brussels in Belgium. At the expense of the «BelRoss» award, the work of Maria Kevaeva will be published in London, as part of the 4th collection “Thread”.
In 2020, the competition started on February 15. The announcement and awarding of this year’s laureates will be held as part of the 9th Open Eurasian Festival and Forum (OEBF-2020) in November in Madrid, Spain.
The «BelRoss» award promotes the mutual enrichment of cultures and the unification of creative people. Literature is part of us and our existence in the world; it is multifaceted, and its creators are very different. And unlike painting, music, and dancing – thanks to translators a literary work is made available to readers around the world.