The Blackheath High School MFL department are extremely excited to be taking part in The Queens College, University of Oxford brand new 2021 competition, The Anthea Bell Young Translators competition.

Only 50 schools have been invited to take part in this first year of the competition. Entrants will translate a passage from Spanish, French, German or Mandarin into English, and will also have the opportunity to submit more 'imaginative' translations – a passage from a novel that might be reimagined as a short film or comic strip, for example.

Bringing more international culture into the classroom is a central aim of the prize, and so all passages – fiction and non-fiction – will be rich in cultural content, and creativity in the translation will be rewarded.

Anthea Bell OBE (1936–2018) ranked among the leading literary translators of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her work from German, French and Danish into English encompassed the writings of Kafka, Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Georges Simenon, W.G. Sebald, René Goscinny, Cornelia Funke and many others. 

She won numerous literary awards, some of them several times, and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2015.

We are delighted to be able to honour Anthea's great work, and her commitment to encouraging young language-learners and translators, with this prize.

The Spanish Department has launched the competition practice-run with the Year 11 students who had the opportunity to get creative translating a poem by the famous Spanish Playwright Federico García Lorca.

Our Spanish students have great potential to excel in this competition

 - Mrs Rosado

Please read some of these outstanding translations below.

In the green morning,
I want to be a heart. 
Heart 

In the fresh / youthful/ clean / luscious / full morning
I want to be full of love / happiness / joy 
Love 

And in the mature afternoon
I want to be the nightingale.
Nightingale.

And in the evening / sun sets 
I want to be nature’s purity / virtue / goodness
Goodness

Soul,
Put the colour orange!
Soul,
Put the colour of love.

Happiness / emotion
place the feeling of orange 
Happiness / emotion. 

by Misa W

--

In the unripe morning
I wanted to be a lover
A lover
And in the ripe afternoon
I wanted to be a songbird 
A songbird
Soul
Fill yourself with light
Soul
Fill yourself with love
In the newborn morning
I wanted to be me
A lover
In the fallen afternoon
I wanted to sing
A songbird
Soul
Fill yourself with light
Soul 
Fill yourself with love

by Gemtabitha A

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1. In the unripened morning, I wanted to be a heart. Heart.
2. And in the mature evening, I wanted to be, be a nightingale. Nightingale.
3. Soul, turn joyful, Soul, Turn the colour of love
4. In the living morning, I wanted to be me. Heart.
5. And in the fallen night, I wanted to be my voice. Nightingale
6. Soul, turn joyful, Soul, Turn the colour of love. 

by Demi, Nnenia, Billie

--

by Joanne C