British Council and Wales Arts International have established the Writers’ Chain initiative to develop projects on translation.  India is the market focus country at London Book Fair in April 2009 and the British Council has organised the cultural programme for the event. In the months leading up to the Book Fair, a series of seminars and public events took place in both India and the UK with other partner organisations.

Forty Indian writers, representing the diversity of the country's languages, came to the UK in April 2009. In India, the British Council is planning a three-year programme of activity on themes including translation, reader development, and the commercial potential of literature.

As part of the project, Writers’ Chain organised a high-profile translation workshop in Jaipur in January 2009 which  culminated in a showcase event at the literary festival there on 21st January

The workshop - which was run at the Neemrana Fort Palace Hotel with their support, and in association with Siyahi, a literary agency specialising in Indian literature - was facilitated by Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) Director Alexandra Büchler.

Eight writers took part in the workshop - four from the UK and four from India. Confirmed UK writers were Meg Bateman (Scotland), Mererid Hopwood (Wales), Matthew Hollis (England) and Gearoid Mac Lochlainn (Northern Ireland). Confirmed Indian writers are Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Sampurna Chattarji, Udaya Narayana Singh and Sivasankari.

The Jaipur translation workshop, in association with LAF, was an especially exciting starting-point for Writers’ Chain and India 09, as the focus is truly on multilingualism. Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and English featured alongside Khasi, Bengali and Tamil and Maithili.

Welsh-language translations of poetry written in four of India’s languages will also be showcased at the Nehru Centre in London at 2.30pm on Monday 20 April 2009.

Following the London Book Fair, two additional Writers’ Chain events will take place in Scotland and Wales.  Meg Bateman, Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari and Udaya Narayana Singh will present their work at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh on 23 April 2009. Udaya Narayana Singh will then travel to Cardiff to join Mererid Hopwood and Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih at the Wales Millennium Centre on 24 April. The event has been organised in association with Academi, which has also held writing workshops in schools in Wales and India.

Since 2000, the Literature Across Frontiers network at Aberystwyth University has organised more than 30 workshops in ten countries, involving some 240 writers and translators and generating an estimated 4,000 translations into most European languages, as well as Arabic, Hebrew, Tamazight and Turkish.

Writers’ Chain is also developing outreach work in collaboration with Academi, setting up multimedia workshops for young people in both India and Wales, led by Mererid Hopwood and one of our Indian writers. Academi’s Young People’s writing squads will also be involved in this project.

In addition, the British Council is planning legacy work coming out of the project to run over the next three years.

Wales Arts International – www.wai.org.uk

Wales Literature Exchange - www.walesliterature.org

Academi - www.academi.org

Literature Across Frontiers - www.lit-across-frontiers.org

Siyahi Literary Agency – www.siyahi.in

Neemrana Fort Palace Hotel - www.neemranahotels.com/neemrana/index.html.htm