Found in Translation

One of the big festivals taking place in the city next week is the 2nd annual PEN World Voices festival (and there’ll be ample coverage here, though this particular Galleycat will poke her head in when she’s not up to hear ears in Edgar Week-related events.) As a result, the NYT’s Dinitia Smith asks around the literary world about the nature of books in translation, and the troubling fact that foreign-language books comprise a measly 3% of all those published in a given year – especially when compared to other countries (Italy’s up to 27%.)

It’s an issue addressed earlier this month by the Bookseller in discussing how translated books fare in the UK (especially when people like Gary Pulsifer, publisher of Arcadia, says “a lot of people, including publishers, think that foreign means only American”) and why readers seem to shy away from buying such books. Says Rodney Troubridge, Waterstone’s fiction buyer: “I don’t think that publishers want to acknowledge that books are translated–they want people to assume that everything’s written in English.”

Then again, Dubravka Urgesic, who’s no stranger to incendiary opinions, has a different take on the notion of books in translation. “Every honest linguist will tell you the preservation of language is a lost battle,” Ms. Ugresic said, “because you can’t deal with language dogmatically. Language is a living thing. So let it go.”

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