The Abertis Foundation was to the fore in the presentation ceremony for the “Cervantes Poets in Arabic” (POCENAR) project, organised by the Cervantes Institute of Marrakesh in the Chilean Embassy in Morocco. The initiative is supporting a programme to translate poets awarded the Cervantes Prize into Arabic so that there is greater access to their work in Morocco and other Arab countries. It will also serve to foster intercultural dialogue and highlight the work of young Moroccan translators.

The translators, who have been selected via a competition, will do a large part of their work in residential translation workshops in the Dar al-Ma’mûn complex in Marrakech and will be supervised by a leading poet and translator. The Abertis Foundation has financed the first work to be translated as part of the project: a non-commercial edition of poetry by the Chilean poet Gonzalo de Rojas.

Guests at the presentation ceremony included Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner, the Spanish Ambassador in Morocco; Pilar Tena, Coordinator of the UNESCO Centre; Georgina Flamme, representing the Abertis Foundation; Alex Geiger, the Ambassador of Chile in Morocco; Yolanda Soler, Director of the Cervantes Institute of Marrakech, and Ali Bounoua, the translator (From left to right in the photo).

The Abertis Foundation is supporting this initiative as part of the activities carried out by the UNESCO International Centre on Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves to foster closer ties between the two coastlines of the Mediterranean and within the framework of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22), which takes place in Morocco in November.