Background

The Hungarian Translators House Foundation was founded in 1995 by the Attila József Circle with the aim of establishing and maintaining the Hungarian Translators House. The guests of the Hungarian Translators House are foreign translators translating Hungarian Literature into their native language, their stay in Hungary is sponsored by a scholarship of the Hungarian Translators House Foundation.

Scholarships are awarded by the Board of the Hungarian Translators House Foundation. The Hungarian Translators House is situated on the Northern shore of the Lake Balaton, in Balatonfüred, the Lipták villa, a house of many decades of literary tradition.

The First year of the Translators House

The first guest arrived from Bulgaria in February 1998, and the house had been full from late May to early December. The guests have taken good use of the possibilities offered by the house. They had also been asked to take part in the social life of the city: they held public lectures about their work in the local high school and the Lipták Book Club. - The Goethe Institute has organized a three day's seminar in the house for German and Hungarian authors and translators. On Juny 20 th the Hungarian writers and translators were invited for a garden party; the meeting will be repeated in 1999. - The house was visited by two Chinese and a Finnish-Estonian delegation of translators. - At the end of August we were visited by Árpád Göncz, the President of the Hungarian Republic and his wife. - On October 14 th Béla Pomogáts, the President of the Hungarian Writers Association opened the Lipták Memorial Room which commemorates Gábor Lipták, the former proprietor of the house (the room can be visited on request). - The Hungarian Translators House is sponsored by the Pro Helvetia Fund and with the help of Christine Rácz has organized other programs as well in 1997 and 98: German translators had been working on a joint translation of Hungarian literary texts at Balatonfüred; there was a conference at Budapest on the position of women in literature; we are sponsoring the German edition of five Hungarian books on the occasion of the 1999 Frankfurt Book Fair, and the translation and publication of five feminist books (Csokonai Publishers, Balassi Publishers); - The guests of the house are supplied by a well-equipped kitchen, computers, printer, photocopier, phone and a library of approximately 1600 volumes comprising dictionaries, multi-lingual encyclopedias, Hungarian literature, journals and newspapers.