UNESCO's Clearing House for Literary Translation

UNESCO's Clearing House for Literary Translation is a centre for information, guidance and encounter for all those (translators, publishers, researchers, archivists, teachers) working on the discovery and promotion of still unknown literatures.

To identify the capital and literary heritage for guidance of translators and publishers. One guidance service that we wish to offer to professionals of literary translation and publishing sector consists in literary historical and contemporary heritage lists able to facilitate the work of identifying texts for translation and publication. In view of this we are making the following lists providing information and contact details available to professional literary translators.

• A collection of national lists of works recommended for translation by UNESCO's National Commissions (available by clicking on the world map on the left side of the screen).
  
  
• The historical catalogue of the UNESCO Collection of representative works, which lists approximately 1400 works identified by UNESCO through a period of over 50 years, as masterpieces of the world literature; they have already been translated and published in at least one of the major written vehicular languages.
  
  
• The list of the Society for the promotion of Africa, Asia and South America (Litprom), established after consultation with the on-field organisms specialised in locating quality texts from regions lacking editorial opportunities.
  
  
• The African Book Collective (ABC) proposes to UNESCO twenty african works from the lists of publishers participating in the ABC programme, as books suitable for translation and potential new titles for inclusion in its Collection of Representative Works.