Interview with Gaia Seller (Casa delle Traduzioni in Rome)

Gaia Seller, archivist and librarian, is currently in charge of the Casa delle Traduzioni (House of Translations) at the “Istituzione Sistema delle Biblioteche Centri Culturali di Roma Capitale”. She worked for ten years as a translator for various publishing houses and newspapers. She has participated in conferences and roundtables on the subject of translation and various aspects of the translator’s profession.

La Casa delle Traduzioni in Rome was created in 2011. How has it evolved since its foundation?

Several years have passed since 2011, almost three lustres. At the inauguration, I remember that I was there too, I was a translator at the time. I was pregnant with my son Giordano and my belly was already showing. There were so many people there that I preferred to sit on the stairs, waiting for them to bring me a glass to toast the new library.

Several things have changed since then. There has been an explosion of translation courses, university and non-university, resulting in a saturation of the educational offer. There has been the pandemic, which has structurally changed the way the library and its cultural offerings are used, with an increasing demand to attend events remotely.

Over the years, therefore, the dynamics of interaction with users and the delivery of the cultural offerings have changed somewhat, but the objectives are still the same: to offer already experienced translators free and continuous training and to help budding translators untangle the main dynamics of the translation world, not least the contractual aspects (we expect to restart our orientation desk shortly).

To these two strands (which are our guiding stars, in addition to a bibliographic collection that is periodically enriched and includes highly specialised texts that are often difficult to find elsewhere) we are adding workshops with schools to introduce young people as well to the world of translation and its tools of the trade.

What must a translator who intends to apply for a stay at the Casa delle Traduzioni in Rome do?

A translator who has at least two translations of Italian works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or theatre to his or her credit and has signed a translation contract, simply needs to fill in the form downloadable from our website and send his or her CV and a copy of the translation contract. The cost of the stay is insignificant: 20 euros per night, plus 30 euros one-off payment.

How many translators have stayed at the Casa delle Traduzioni and what does a typical stay of a translator hosted by the House look like?

Our guest house (which consists of two rooms with private bathroom and a common equipped kitchen) allows us to fulfil the second institutional task of the Casa delle Traduzioni: to contribute to spreading the literature of our country throughout the world through the stays of translators of Italian authors in foreign languages. In almost ten years of activity we have hosted around 150 translators from all over the world.

The aim of these stays is to allow translators to fully immerse themselves in the linguistic and cultural context of the author they are translating. Therefore, in addition to offering a very stimulating environment on a logistical level (our guests stay in the centre of Rome, a stone’s throw from the metro and buses and, above all, are surrounded by the beauty and effervescent atmosphere of the capital), our guests can make use day and night of a high-level specialist library and exchange ideas with Italian translators, young and old, established and newcomers. This is what it means to ask our guests to make themselves available for conducting workshops, seminars, readings or events, in line with what happens in the other European translator’s houses of the Récit network (Réseau Européen des Centres Internationaux de Traducteurs littéraires), of which the Casa delle Traduzioni is a member. This virtuous formula allows us to provide continuous and free training and to contribute to the debate between translators belonging to different cultures and generations.

Are there any experiences of collaboration between the Casa delle Traduzioni di Roma and the network of Italian Cultural Institutes?

Here too, we are trying to take up and strengthen actions already undertaken in the past. We would like, for example, to include the Casa delle Traduzioni in the programme of celebrations that periodically take place when some anniversary of renowned Italian authors occurs, perhaps hosting translators and thematic roundtables.

Does the Casa delle Traduzioni have any particular initiatives planned for the near future?

We have just hosted a Dutch workshop, a three-day event in which twelve Dutch translators discussed translation strategies for contemporary Dutch texts, including Arnon Grunberg, one of the most popular Dutch writers on the contemporary scene, who has received numerous awards and has been translated into over thirty languages. It was a wonderful experience for which we also have to thank the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Rome, the Nederlands Letterenfonds and the association of publishing translators StradeLab.

In the coming weeks, we will be hosting a series of meetings organised by the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies at La Sapienza University of Rome and some initiatives together with the Embassy of the United States of America and the Finnish Embassy.

Together with the young people of the civil service, then, we are working to better involve our numerous reading circles and to revive the relationship with publishing houses through periodic thematic meetings to be organised together.

For next year, among other things, we are planning a series of meetings on Persian language and literature (involving several universities and publishing houses and the Cultural Institute of Iran in Rome) and a roundtable on the translation of Elsa Morante’s The Story.

These are two complex and very ambitious projects, but on our side we have a certain obstinacy and great passion, which I hope will help lead us to our goal.