23th Week of Italian Language Wraps Up in Tehran With Awards Ceremony

By: F. Taherpoor

TEHRAN (Iran News) On the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of prominent Italian writer and intellectual Italo Calvino, the Italian Embassy dedicated this year’s Italian Language event to this writer whose works have great fans in Iran and have been translated repeatedly in Iran.

At the beginning of the event, Cultural Attache of Italian Embassy Yara Romanova gave more details to the participants in the ceremony on this year’s Italian Language Week in Iran which had been allocated to Calvino. She said that the Italian Language Week started in Tehran on November 2 and ended on Thursday through holding various events. She reiterated that Calvino was the topic of the week in Iran because of his popularity among Iranians and several of his works being translated into Persian.

Then Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone, for his part, said that November 30 was the last day of marking Italian Language Week worldwide and he is happy that this week in Iran was welcomed warmly. He added that this year the embassy in collaboration with Uni Italia (Uni-Italia is a center assisting international students wishing to come and study in Italy, helping them find the perfect course and Higher Education Institutions) held a competition in three categories for Iranian students in Iran and abroad who are interested in the works of Calvino. He added that they held sessions with Iranian translators who are interested in Calvino’s works as Italian language is a key for access to a great civilization and culture as Italian language is considered as the language of theater and opera. He went on to say that today they are happy they speak Italian and talking about Italian literature which is one of the richest ones.

He thanked Romanova and First Secretary of the embassy Ms. Giulia Flore for holding the event for promoting the Italian language especially in this week.

Then Romanova took the floor for awarding the prizes of the winners of the competitions of the Italian Language Week.

She said participants in the three categories of the competition had one month to submit their articles and works to the special jury to evaluate their works for naming the best ones.

The first category of the competition was articles and translations on the untranslated works of Calvino in Iran and a four-man group jointly won jointly the top 2500-euro cash prize. Hadis Tavakolian, Elnaz Gorji, Mehnoush Joushesh and Fatemeh Moqaddasi won the prize.

In the second category which was with the topic of welcoming Calvino in Iran, Nasim Mohammadi who is studying abroad won the top 2500-euro cash prize for her article on Calvino.

Meanwhile two Tehran University students Ghazal Heydari and Reyhane Teymouri jointly won the top prize in the third category which was translation of and study on Calvino works.

Then other participants in the competitions who filed to win the top prizes were honored by giving certificates.

Then Romanova thanked students who have great role in promoting Italian language and culture which boosts relations between Iran and Italy as two biggest civilizations.

After the award ceremony, a roundtable chaired by First Secretary of Embassy Ms. Flore was held with the participation of two Iranian prominent translators of Calvino’s works, Ms. Haleh Nazemi and Mojgan Mehregan, and Italian Professor Rosalia Gambatesa, the lecturer at the Department of Italian Language and Literature of Tehran University.

Addressing the roundtable, Flore thanked the ambassador and all participants and students for the event and said that in the roundtable translators of Calvino’s works in Iran would explain why they have chosen his works for translation.

Then, Ms. Gambatesa talked about Calvino and his characteristics in his works especially his translated works in Iran and reiterated that in the 80s and 90s every year at least one of Calvino’s works was translated into Persian and his works were popular among Iranians. She then pointed to one of Calvino’s works “The Collection of Sand” and said that the last chapters of this works are about Calvino’s travel to Iran in 1975.

Then Ms. Nazemi, translator of the Collection of Sand, talked about why she chose this book for translation and reiterated that Calvino was a creative writer and he was more researcher than being a writer and in his works he is looking for answers to his questions.

Then Ms. Mehregan who has translated four works of Calvino into Persian talked about Calvino and reiterated in his books one can find more than one human in Calvino as he has great scientific, cultural, social and even international knowledge.

Meanwhile some photos of Calvino’s travel to Iran and cities of Shiraz, Isfahan and Yazd were put on display on the sidelines of the event.

Calvino is best known works include Italian Folktales, a lyrical retelling of 200 traditional fables, the allegorical Our Ancestors trilogy, the whimsical Cosmicomics short story collection, and the novels Invisible City and If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler.

The Week of the Italian Language in the World is an event that has been held by Italian missions abroad since 2001 and that over time has become one of the most important initiatives dedicated to the celebration of the Italian language internationally. The event is held and marked in the third were of October (16-21) every year and each year it is dedicated to one of the greatest of Italian literature and language.

This year Italian Embassy in Tehran chose Calvino because he is famous in Iran and his works have been translated into Persian. It also postponed the event to late October and early November and some photos and books of Calvino were put on display during the event.