The Czech Literature Portal "is intended mainly for the promotion of Czech literature abroad." You can read more about it at a Prague Post story by Stephan Delbos:
Started by the Culture Ministry in 2005, the site was recently handed over to the Arts and Theatre Institute (Institut umění-Divadelní ústav) and two young institute experts, Viktor Debnár and Jaroslav Balvín, who were responsible for translating and launching an English-language version of the site in recent weeks...Thanks for the link, peacay! Posted by languagehat at January 17, 2010 09:14 PMThe portal reads as a virtual survey of Czech literature, with an illustrated database of literary links and bibliographies. Perhaps more importantly, however, the site offers English-language readers an introduction to many contemporary Czech writers, whose work might otherwise be lost in translation. A lack of this type of cultural and linguistic cross-pollination is one of the largest shortcomings of the relatively diverse literary scene in Prague, where translators of Czech literature into English are still relatively rare, Balvín said.
Hat, I "know" you vaguely passingly, having bought your copy of Svejk some four years ago, but have patiently and ploddingly been translating my way through a half-dozen books of the author Ladislav Fuks for no real reason other than that I had to, with zero regard for legal rights or what I intended on doing with them once I finished. (as though a translation were ever actually "finished."
I should probably get in touch with these Czechs, if nothing else?
I love your site.
Posted by: Andrew Malcovsky at January 18, 2010 06:04 AM"[T]ranslators of Czech literature into English are still relatively rare".
As Andrew was presumably too high-minded to ask or enquire, is this a euphemism for "unusally well-paid"?
Posted by: des von bladet at January 18, 2010 08:18 AMPerhaps it's a euphemism for "paid-at-all translators".
Posted by: John Emerson at January 18, 2010 09:05 AMIf "high-minded" is a synonym for "naively ignorant," then this is probably more true than I would like.
I've done a small amount of work out of Slovak (my brother lives and works in Bratislava) and gotten paid before, so it's possible.
Posted by: Andrew Malcovsky at January 18, 2010 01:31 PM