Joint ad hoc initiatives

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Versopolis poetry (103) has grown into a 30-festival-strong platform since its beginning in 2014. Versopolis supports the translation of a selection of emerging poets’ works into English and other European languages. It enables the publication of these works in printed booklets, in e-books and on the Versopolis website alongside full profile descriptions. Versopolis also supports poets’ mobility by organising guest appearances at different European literary festivals. This creates opportunities for networking with foreign publishers, literary agents, the press and other actors in the field of literature. By the end of 2021, it will have offered opportunities to 321 European poets from 39 countries, writing in 32 languages, to make a breakthrough in the European and global poetry scene.

Finally, the EU Prize for Literature (104) is a strong symbol of the commitment of the Creative Europe programme to promote the excellence and the diversity of European literature. Organised by the Federation of European Publishers, the EIBF and the European Writers’ Council, it has rewarded and promoted 148 emerging writers from 41 countries since its creation in 2009.

Joint ad hoc initiatives

Regional cooperation can also take place on a more ad hoc basis. This was the case in 2018, when the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – were the ‘market focus’ at the London Book Fair, and the three countries cooperated at regional level in order to fully leverage the opportunity. The three Baltic countries carried out a 4-year cooperation project and had three shared events at the fair, along with separate programmes for each country. The Baltic countries followed the Nordic countries’ approach to promotion at regional level. Since the three countries are different, have different experiences and have different book promotion strategies, it was rather complicated to promote them as a region. Lithuania had the most experience in being a guest of honour at that time, having held the title at the Bologna, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Latvia Book Fairs, but it had not previously engaged in cooperation with its Baltic neighbours to a great extent. Estonia and Latvia had been guest countries at Gothenburg Book Fair in the past. In Estonia, writers are highly independent and want to keep their rights in order to sell them. The Estonian Literature Centre and the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre promote authors at book fairs.

Since the decision to make a joint effort to participate in the London Book Fair market focus programme, Latvia has restructured its book export strategy using some elements of both the Estonian and Lithuanian approaches. Currently,

the platform Latvian Literature manages grant support schemes and helps to promote Latvian writers with the help of three literary agents working part time. Following its participation in the London Book Fair in 2018, Latvia has revised and reorganised the structure of its international literature promotion. In Latvia, translations into larger and regional languages are prioritised over translations into more exotic languages, due to a limited budget. Furthermore, any publishers applying for a translation grant in Latvia have to submit a marketing plan. Following the book fair and restructuring, the translation of new titles has tripled every year. Baltic cooperation at the London Book fair has (a) provided an arena to lobby for book translation into foreign languages; (b) led to a network of contacts being developed between the Baltic countries, leading to intensified cooperation between them, for example between the countries’ writers’ unions; and (c) led to a great increase in mutual book translations, with 21 books having since been translated into Estonian. Working together for the market focus project has also helped the three countries to find out more about each other’s literature, and has increased interest in publishing circles for Baltic authors.