TEHRAN – Iran’s Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) has launched “Translation of Persia” (TOP), a new project that promotes the translation of Persian books into other languages.

A group of Iranian literati and some cultural officials, including Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati, ICRO Director Abuzar Ebrahimi-Torkamaan, and Academy of Persian Language and Literature Director Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, came together at a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday to introduce the project.

“Based on the new project, all interested foreign translators and publishers will have a discount of 30 to 70 percent in collaboration with ICRO,” Ebrahimi Torkamaan said at the ceremony.

“The 30 percent discount would be offered on books selected by the publishers, while the 70 percent discount would be for books in which the publishers show no interest,” he added.

“This project helps international publishers translate and distribute Persian books. My personal experience in Russia (where he served as Iran’s cultural attaché) was that when we published the Russian translation of “Good Stories for Good Children” by Mehdi Azar Yazdi, the book was well received. However when it was illustrated and published by Russian publishers, the book was republished three times. So we need to get closer to the language of culture, art and religion in our translations”, he explained.

“Introducing Iranian and Islamic thought and culture to other languages, and encouraging translators to work on Persian books are the major goals of this project,” ICRO deputy director Qahreman Soleimani next said in his brief remarks.

He added that the project has been established based on previous experience in 42 countries, adding that a book council has been established to select and review books on different topics.

“Books on Islam, science, Persian fiction, Sacred Defence and Iranology are among the topics selected so far,” he said.

Culture Minister Jannati also referred to the fact that most of the translations have been conducted based on personal interests. “In order to avoid any amateur translations, we need to collaborate with Iranian and foreign publishers and give more credits to the private sector.”

Pointing to the fact that not every individual book is appropriate for translation, Haddad-Adel also said that he believes translators need to render the text from the second language into their own native language and that is why teaching Persian language to foreign students is a necessity.

Photo: Culture Minister Ali Jannati speaks at a ceremony that ICRO held in Tehran on October 27, 2015 to introduce “Translation of Persia” (TOP), a new project that promotes the translation of Persian books into other languages. (Tasnim/Hamed Malekpur)

RM/YAW
END