Subsidising the arts
Sir: J. W. M. Thompson's 'Spectator's notebook' (4 April) refers to a complaint that 'the Arts Council's 'list of "bursaries" includes one of £500 to an American, living in Rome, for his Italian translation.' This is not so. Arts Council bursaries, which are intended to enable a writer to buy time to write, are awarded to British subjects, or to Common- wealth citizens resident in this country. The American translator referred to, Mr William Weaver, shared with Miss Christine Brooke- Rose an Arts Council prize for the best transla- tion into English prose, published in England between 1966 and 1968. The object of this par- ticular exercise is to encourage the translation into English of important foreign works which would not otherwise be accessible to English readers. The judges, Dr George Steiner and Mr Francis King, considered that the prize should be shared by two books: Main Robbe-Grillet's In the Labyrinth translated by Christine Brooke- Rose and Renzo Rosso's The Hard Thorn trans- latgd by William Weaver.
Eric W. White Literature Director, The Arts Council of Great Britain, 105 Piccadilly, London WI
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