The Romani Library

a) The project

The Romani Library project aims to promote and make available across Europe modern literature of the Roma culture. Its origins lie in a collaboration between expert academic institutions, European publishers with an intercultural perspective, Roma cultural organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations with experience in Romani publishing.

The principal focus is on the selection, translation, publication, distribution and promotion of significant works of modern Romani literature under the banner “Romani Library” (RL). The multilingual edition will consist of a total of thirty volumes, five in each of German, English, French, Romani, Swedish and Hungarian.

b) The purpose of the project

The Roma live as a Diaspora spread across all member states and candidate member states of the EU. Their number in this area is estimated to be 6,600,000, approximately 4,600,000 of whom speak a variety of Romani. Although the environments and conditions under which Roma live differ from country to country, they are united not only by a common origin, but also by a history of social discrimination and racial persecution which peaked in the Holocaust but still persists in less visible forms.

In addition to an older, mostly oral, tradition recent decades have seen the growth of a multilingual written Roma literature that discusses contemporary issues and modern aesthetic movements, giving insights into the contemporary life of the Roma. Irrespective of their literary merit, many of these works appear only in very limited editions, and translations into other languages have been rare. In order to facilitate a more cohesive profile for these authors spread across Europe and the World, July 2002 saw the foundation of the International Romani Writers' Association (IRWA) based in Finland.

In the light of this the Romani Library has two aims. On the one hand it seeks to contribute to nurturing and reinforcing the cultural identity of Romani as a language of contemporary literature and in particular to encourage the younger generation to read and itself to write creatively. On the other hand the Romani Library is intended to make Roma literature accessible to a broad spectrum of readers in order to combat prejudices, to enliven intercultural dialogue and to promote the recognition of Roma literature as an integral part of European and World literature and culture.

c) The objectives of the project

d) The anticipated results of the project

 e) Approaches and methods of the project

 A panel of experts (Milena Hübschmannovà, Beate Eder, Donald Kenrick, Rajko Djuric, Rahim Burhan and others) will be consulted to create a shortlist of significant works of Romani literature.

The shortlist will include among others works or text-compilations by Matéo Maximoff (France), Bronislawa Papusa Wajs (Poland), Leksa Manus (Lithuania), José Heredia Maya (Spain), Mariella Mehr (Italy), Veijo Baltzar (Finland), Attila Balogh (Hungary), Jovan Nikolic (Germany).

Each publisher will select five titles from this list. The final thirty works will reflect the geographical, linguistic, formal and thematic diversity of Romani literature and include authors of different generations and both sexes. Translation and editorial preparation will be left to the publishers.

The high degree of variation and limited standardisation of the Romani language publications (both originals and translations) significantly complicates their publication, which will be the responsibility of the project co-ordinator.

f) Partners in the project

Project co-ordinator:

Co-organising publishers:

Co-organising Non-Governmental Organisation:

Other partners:

g) Beneficiaries of the project 

h) Dates, duration, and locations of project activities

starting 01.05.2003;            ending: 30.04.2006