Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, and Ertugrul Günay, Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, have today (9 March) established a German-Turkish Translation Prize, which will be presented for the first time this year. The Prize will be awarded for outstanding translations both of German literature into Turkish and Turkish literature into German.

The Translation Prize is being launched under the auspices of the Ernst Reuter Initiative for Intercultural Dialogue and Understanding. The Ernst Reuter Initiative (ERI) was founded in 2006 following the controversy over the Muhammad cartoons. The Initiative now has a large number of successful projects to its credit in areas ranging from the arts, culture and the media to youth, academia and integration, including a joint master’s programme offered by Humboldt-Universität Berlin and the Middle East University Ankara, for example, or the German-Turkish youth orchestra Jungenc.