Conversation with Mireille Gansel, Dolors Udina and Antoni Clapés

For Mireille Gansel, the task of translating has meant a strong ethical and political commitment, a form of struggle and questioning through words. Daughter of Jewish refugees, persecuted by Nazism, has just published Traduir com transhumar (Lleonard Muntaner, 2021) where she reflects on translation as a way of life, a path of knowledge, discovery and life.

In this session, Mireille Gansel will talk with translator Dolors Udina and poet, translator and editor Antoni Clapés about the experience of translation, a work that, for Gansel, has been a way to build bridges between cultures, to interpret them and to learn from the other.

Mireille Gansel has been awarded the Veu Lliure 2021 Prize by the Catalan PEN, an award given to authors persecuted because of their writings and recognizes their commitment to the defense of freedom of expression.

Catalan PEN values her defense of freedom of expression in the translation of poets persecuted by Nazism, the translation of former GDR dissidents and the publication of the first volume of classical poetry during the Vietnam War. Mireille Gansel has given voice to authors who, without her work as a translator, would not have been read.

The event will conclude with the performance Acció 15: La Pell que escup y escampa by the artist Francesca Llopis, author of the poster for the Veu Lliure 2021 Prize, where the artist, through the Japanese technique of Giotaku, prints the trace of the body on a second skin: paper.