In the early March of 2022, the Multilingual Go book project completed its sixth full version with Catalan joining the already completed editions in English, Greek, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. This particular version had started with the effort of Ferran Bassols who begun translating the first two chapters, but the whole effort has been completed with the work for Joan Lluis, who finished up the first chapters and then proceeded to do an amazing job in translating all the 192 pages of the book.
The Catalan book’s cover.
The main goal of the project is to create a free Go book for beginners that will be translated to as many languages as possible, in order to provide an additional way to promote and spread Go in countries that do not have a Go tradition and their native language is not English.
Each page provides easy to read material for the native speakers of each language
Along those lines, the biggest ambition of the project is not only the provision of a free online resource, but also the printing and distribution of free copies of the book in physical copies. In that regard, Joan Lluis considered the cultural celebration of Sant Jordi that takes place in 23 of April in Catalonia to be the ideal occasion for a Go book related event. Sant Jordi’s festival is a day of culture, where love and life is celebrated. It is customary to give women a rose and men a book or vice versa as preferred, so, fifty physical copies of the book were printed, to be shared with the people in the event.
The program of the event along with the printed books that will be offered to the attendees
Taking advantage of the fact that this year it falls on a Sunday and we have the whole weekend (every time the festivities last longer than indicated) Joan Lluis has organized the inauguration ceremony of the Go club of the Gran Penya de Vilanova i la GeltrĂş on April 22th to achieve maximum influx and impact.
The main idea is to show a new game and, at the same time, since this day is celebrated on the day of the book, present the first Go book in Catalan within the framework of a global project to guarantee the possibility to use the different mother tongues of the world in the field of Go.
Sant Jordi’s day is the day of books and roses
The schedule of the event is this (22th of April – Gran Penya)
12:00 pm : Welcome
12:30 pm : Conference: two games, two worlds
1:00 p.m. : Presentation of the first Go book in Catalan
4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. : Games and Go workshop
We would be very glad to see you there and everyone is welcome to come by, say hi, play some Go and get a Go book in Catalan. See you there!
For the Multilingual Go Project:
Joan Lluis (Catalan translator, Event Organiser)
Haris Kapolos (Author, Typesetting)
