View Full Version : Media Reviews Of Translations
I thought we could maybe mention, now and again, when there is a serious review of a translated book on the book pages of the Guardian, Times, Independent and Telegraph, plus the TLS, LRB and other publications.
This would show how often there are reviews of translated literature. As there are so many threads here, all you have to do is point the rest of us to the URL. Then people will at least know the review exists.
Might as well add the USian instances as well (NYT, NYRB, WashPost, LATimes [tho they're losing the standalone section]), lord knows it's not going to add a lot of traffic ...
Nnyhav: if you have all the URLs and the time, you can skim the USA, and others Britain. That's a start.
As I have mentioned, I get a better response from a number of U.S. publishers when I moot new books to translate than I do from my fellow Brits. But I can well imagine that the mainstream press in the USA is just as philistine with regard to translations as are British publications.
Orthofer has been covering this, at least at the NYTimes Book Review: his complaint (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200803b.htm#dy1), ongoing (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200804c.htm#el6), about the dearth of translated fiction coverage has moved on to the dearth of fiction coverage in general, as NYT has seemingly moved its efforts at fiction (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+site:delong.typepad.com+new.york.times.death.sp iral.watch) into other sections of the paper ...
When you subtract retranslations, reworkings, crime novels and a few other categories, you're not left over with a great number of translations.
I can imagine a headline like:
TRANSLATION REVIEWS DOUBLE THIS MONTH!
The Los Angeles Passover has doubled, yes doubled its coverage of translated literature this month! Last month there were two reviews, now four! This shows that America is really getting to grips with literature in translation! Bla, bla, bla...
NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html) fiction: Sylvain Trudel, Mercury Under My Tongue (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/books/review/Harlin-t.html) (trans Sheila Fischman) [first chapter (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/books/chapters/chapter-mercury-under-my-tongue.html)]
WP (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/bookworld/index.html): 2 grafs on memoir: Kang Zhengguo, Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008073102654.html) (trans Susan Wilf Norton)
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 02:54
When you subtract [..] crime novels
....adfn why should one do that?
I du9nno
just a wimm
ca'nt wraite more
U lazy dude
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 13:35
I du8nno
just a whim
cant wroite more
2 lazy dude
:D
we're not making fun of drunk people here!
Not drunken ones, just non-existent person?.
Like the non-existent poem copied. The copier must have been drunk, surely?
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 15:26
*g*
dir sitzt der schalk im nacken
as we say here
Stewart
03-Aug-2008, 16:02
Guys, you're veering off topic again.
Even for those of us that want to stay on-topic, there is dismally little to report. But this is August.
The Independent has no translation reviews that I can see. The Guardian has an interview with Chinese author Gao Xingjian. Also an article about the Man Asian, which involves translation. The online TLS appears to have no translations at all. The Telegraph Books appears to have no translations, either. The online LRB hasn't, either. Maybe the print editions are better. The Observer has an interview with Mario Vargas Llosa (and Andrew Motion talks about the Queen...).
All in all, British mainstream press coverage right now of translations seems pretty-well non-existent.
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 18:27
here's one
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/books/review/Harlin-t.html?ref=books
Thanks, Mirabell. "Tartly translated", eh? I'll look at the review, anyway.
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 18:38
and this is from last week
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/books/29eder.html?ref=books
Sybarite
03-Aug-2008, 18:53
What are you planning to do with this survey of "non-existent"* coverage of translated literature, Eric?
* That'll be "non-existent" in a sort of existing way (since you found at least some examples).
Well Sybarite and Mirabell, you certainly seem to be winning the argument. Mirabell has come up with two reviews, one of which is for a dud thriller and Da Vinci clone, according to the NYT. Sybarite has come up with a one-liner, trying to imply that two reviews prove that coverage of translated literature in the English-speaking press is excellent, while stoopid Eric can't even count up to two.
So, let's keep looking, and we might find serious reviews in serious papers about serious (non-crime-novel!!!) fiction and, if we're lucky, a bit of poetry.
Mirabell
03-Aug-2008, 22:15
I wasn't trying to win an argument, I think you're right for once, I just wanted to chip in.
OK, Mirabell, you're right. Now I've had a brief look at the British press and you've found the NYT, there are still a lot more publications in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa that may also have reviews.
Not that I've got the energy to trawl though to find a lot, but it would be interesting to compare those publications with the Feuilleton, Kultur and Literarische whatever pages of, say, the FAZ, Die Zeit, Die Welt, S?ddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Neues Deutschland, Der Spiegel, etc., etc., and compare the number of translated
[Interruption: Morgonpost says that Solzhenitsyn has died]
Anyway, you get my meaning: comparison.
Sybarite
04-Aug-2008, 08:57
Well Sybarite and Mirabell, you certainly seem to be winning the argument. Mirabell has come up with two reviews, one of which is for a dud thriller and Da Vinci clone, according to the NYT. Sybarite has come up with a one-liner, trying to imply that two reviews prove that coverage of translated literature in the English-speaking press is excellent, while stoopid Eric can't even count up to two...
No. No, I didn't.
I stated ? quite clearly, really ? that the articles in question illustrate that articles about translated literature are not "non-existent".
"Non-existent" means none. Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Since you yourself have found one or more articles connected with translated literature, such articles cannot therefore be "non-existent". I made absolutely no comment whatsoever about whether that is good or bad.
... So, let's keep looking, and we might find serious reviews in serious papers about serious (non-crime-novel!!!) fiction and, if we're lucky, a bit of poetry.
Is there a reason for deriding fiction that deals with crime in the way that you do?
Stewart
04-Aug-2008, 09:08
Is there a reason for deriding fiction that deals with crime in the way that you do?
I don't think it's so much derision as the fact that crime fiction is perhaps the only genre - apart from say, 19th Century 'classics' - where translated works sell in abundance. Not that we should exclude it, as far as I'm concerned, but I can understand wanting to see reviews of translated works that may be seen to have a little more substance to them.
Sybarite: I simply think that there are, proportionally, far too many translations of crime fiction into English, at the expense of ordinary novels, or general fiction in translation.
This is because the publishing industry has gone over, by stages, to becoming a huge multinational money-making enterprise that cares less and less about so-called "unpopular" or "minority taste" books, and wants to publish only things that make lots of money. This ultimately destroys the natural give-and-take of the export and import of serious fiction. It's all export, no import, unless it's crime fiction. That's the way Britain is heading.
Given the dearth of reviews of serious non-crime fiction in the newspapers in Britain, this strongly implies that journos only review translations when published by Bertelsmann or Hachette subsidiaries and the like. Because I have two recent Norvik novels I want to review sometime:
August Strindberg: Tschandala, translated by Peter Graves (2007)
Hjalmar Bergman: Memoirs of a Dead Man, translated by Neil Smith (2007)
I have not seen any review of either of these books in the mainstream British press. For Armitstead & Tonkin, such a small press as Norvik does not exist. The only Bergman that they will have heard of is Ingmar. Norvik isn't prestigious enough, doesn't throw enough piss-ups for the publishing classes. Ditto Dedalus, which was dumped by the Arts Council of England, and few journos dare touch. There were a few welcome noises of support in the press earlier this year, but how many Dedalus books have the Indy or Guardian actually reviewed over the past five years?
Nor do the Guardian and Independent bother with Dalkey Archive books, except for the Holocaust novel by Verhaeghen that won the Indy Prize. Hopefully, this win will mean that Dalkey is now on the London book journos' radar. Dalkey does, after all, have a London rep. It's a question of a combination of good will and good information.
Britain is in a pretty paradoxical situation, where much of the publishing industry is owned by German (Bertelsmann) and French (Hachette) business interests, but the number of translations from French or German, let alone other languages, is tiny.
As a journalist yourself, Sybarite, you could perhaps shed light upon the above matters.
Sybarite
05-Aug-2008, 08:08
Sybarite: I simply think that there are, proportionally, far too many translations of crime fiction into English, at the expense of ordinary novels, or general fiction in translation...
Eric, fair enough. Personally, I'm dubious of the limits that classifying books by genre can create – but what also does occur to me is whether such translations are at the expense of non-crime fiction ones. Perhaps, because crime fiction is popular – because it sells – translations of crime fiction increase the number of translations sold in the UK? I don't know, but I would have thought it possible. I don't think there's any allotted number of translated books that cannot be passed, so that crime fiction takes up a percentage of that – thus removing the possibility of a translated non-crime fiction book being published.
... This is because the publishing industry has gone over, by stages, to becoming a huge multinational money-making enterprise that cares less and less about so-called "unpopular" or "minority taste" books, and wants to publish only things that make lots of money. This ultimately destroys the natural give-and-take of the export and import of serious fiction...
As we've discussed before. The end of the net book agreement was not good for people who want to read literature or anything other than the mainstream.
... It's all export, no import, unless it's crime fiction. That's the way Britain is heading...
I'm not sure that it's quite that pessimistic a situation. There will always be a core of readers who want literary fiction. Increasingly too, you can buy from abroad, whether via such sites as Amazon or through independent booksellers. It's very similar, I think, to foreign language films in the UK – very few of them are screened in cinemas; indeed, unless you have a 'art' cinema near you, it'll be very rare to see a foreign language film; very few break through into the 'mainstream' of what is screened in UK cinemas (Goodbye Lenin is a rare example). There isn't enough interest, apparently, for TV to show many such films (what I'll loosely describe as 'arts' TV has been ghettoised in the last decade or so, or else you have to subscribe to channels). So people rent and buy on DVD. Companies have cropped up to serve a specific audience. I think that the same sort of thing will/is happen/ing with literature.
I don't think that you're ever going to create, in the UK, a mass market for literary fiction per se – or foreign language films. I've seen nothing to suggest that such a market was ever there in the past. The joys of being an island nation – the language and the attitude toward it. The attitude toward the arts and culture in general. Many things, as we've discussed elsewhere, contribute to this situation – and have contributed to it over the centuries.
... Given the dearth of reviews of serious non-crime fiction in the newspapers in Britain, this strongly implies that journos only review translations when published by Bertelsmann or Hachette subsidiaries and the like. Because I have two recent Norvik novels I want to review sometime:
August Strindberg: Tschandala, translated by Peter Graves (2007)
Hjalmar Bergman: Memoirs of a Dead Man, translated by Neil Smith (2007)
I have not seen any review of either of these books in the mainstream British press...
With respect, Eric, you won't see reviews for many, many, many books that were written in English, whether they be published by mainstream publishers or otherwise, whether they be literary fiction or otherwise. The UK, if I recall correctly, publishers more books per head of population than just about anywhere else in the world. Many of those are going to get 'lost', not reviewed.
The office where I currently work produces reviews in a quarterly magazine. We get regular boxes of children's books just from one publishers – probably a box a month. Vast amounts. And that's just one house and just for children. Goodness knows how many other such books are published but are never reviewed.
... Britain is in a pretty paradoxical situation, where much of the publishing industry is owned by German (Bertelsmann) and French (Hachette) business interests, but the number of translations from French or German, let alone other languages, is tiny...
You're making the mistake of assuming that such companies have any other agenda in mind than making the greatest profit possible in the shortest time. That's what they do. So they are geared up to the market. And in the UK, that does not include a vast amount of literary fiction, be it in translation or otherwise.
... As a journalist yourself, Sybarite, you could perhaps shed light upon the above matters.
I can only go on my own experiences, since there's no one rule for every publication. Usually, I review what I'm asked to review. Where I'm currently working, we have a limited space for reviews every quarter and need to bear in mind our readership. So there might be one 'literary' novel a quarter – and sometimes that'll be a translated book (Allende was the most recent example that I can think of). But I cannot recall any conversation where the question of the origin of a book was discussed; where the matter of whether to review or not review was based on language.
It's rare that I get a choice. Some years ago, in a different working situation, I did get a choice and reviewed a variety of books over the years. Including books in translation.
I very much doubt that there are any deliberate policies in place to ignore translated literature when it comes to reviewing. In certain publications, I'd expect an opposite view. What my experience does show me is that it's difficult to get books for review anyway. It's difficult to get catalogues and then to get publishers to send you stuff. They don't rely, I suspect, on reviews much but on the trade in bookshops at railways stations etc.
I don't know what the situation is regarding small houses – or even big ones – that publish translated literature in the UK. Perhaps they need to push such literature to reviewing publications much more? Perhaps they need to be more proactive in mailing catalogues or organising email newsletters to review editors?
As I said, I don't know. But experience tells me that it seems to be largely a question of chance whether you find out about literary fiction before it's published.
Let me tackle a few things in Sybarite's #24:
I do not believe in the knock-on, or trickle down, effect that Sybarite suggests, i.e. that if more crime novels are sold in translation, it will help general fiction in translation. All it will mean is that publishers are choosing crime novels from a larger pool.
A lot of the sales are driven by hype. If something is pushed in your face every time you enter Waterstone's, it is likely it will sell more than things collecting dust in a dark corner of the shop, irrespective of quality or what people would read if they were aware of the choice.
I think that if publishers put as much money and effort into promoting general fiction in translation, that too would sell.
The end of the net book agreement was not good for serious literature. What have people done to try to reverse the trend?
The link between "the book" and "the film" is not always in the interests of literature. Once again, this nearly always means that if a book has been Hollywoodised, it will sell even more copies of the book. Once again, those people who craft books as books suffer.
Let's keep off the import of films and other things. We are talking about serious literature, similar to that written in Britain but coming from countries where they don't write in English. I do not think that equal numbers of serious novels, not propped up by films and hype, that are written in Europe and elsewhere ever get into British bookshops. Forget children's books, I'm talking about ones for grown-ups.
Small publishers are shunned by journos. Tell me the last time you saw a review of a book by Dedalus or Norvik in a mainstream British publication (date, name, etc., not generalisations).
You say:
You're making the mistake of assuming that such companies have any other agenda in mind than making the greatest profit possible in the shortest time.
You said it, not me. You also say:
Usually, I review what I'm asked to review.
Why are journos so supine? You have to start hinting to your bosses that maybe you are big enough now to choose something to review, for a change. (They won't sack you immediately, though they may regard you as trouble and wait for an opportunity to do so.)
There are no deliberate policies among British book people to exclude European and other translated literature. It's just that publishers, editors and reviewers have never developed an interest in "near abroad". Most British publishers pat themselves on the back if they know a bit of French - but do they know anything about the French literary scene unless spoon-fed at Frankfurt?
The situation is dire; and Sybarite's honest appraisal does nothing to make me want to change my mind.
Stewart
06-Aug-2008, 12:32
Tell me the last time you saw a review of a book by Dedalus or Norvik in a mainstream British publication (date, name, etc., not generalisations).
One that springs to mind is Nic Lezard's review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jan/05/fiction4) of Georges Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte in the Guardian from January 5th, 2008. Cynically, it may be seen as a push for a Dedalus title since that was the time their Arts Council Funding was causing a fuss, but he has reviewed other Dedalus titles, such as Guillaume Lecasble's (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jul/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview33)Lobster (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/jul/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview33) or The Dedalus Book Of Absinthe (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/15/historybooks.highereducation2), which demonstrates a track record.
Demons (http://www.nysun.com/arts/demons-inner-and-outer/83262/) trans by Robert Maguire, on 9/11 hook.
Another review invokes foreign comparison (http://www.nysun.com/arts/minding-manners/83242/):
In subject matter, [Ms. Krasikov's] "One More Year" is overshadowed by the Russian writer Ludmila Ulitskaya's "The Funeral Party," a novella about Russian bohemians in New York.
I believe that Bruges-la-Morte was translated twice during the past 10-15 years; firstly, when Terry Hale revised an existent translation, then, when Mike Mitchell re-translated the whole thing. Mike Mitchell went on to translate a second Rodenbach book for Dedalus, The Bellringer of Bruges or some such similar title, called Le Carillionneur in the original French.
I'm glad people did use the review of translations as an excuse to plug Dedalus. After all, the Arts Council of England, one of whose jobs it is to show how good England is at taking on board translations, didn't do all that well in this sphere.
Given the quite large output of anthologies of stories called "The Dedalus Book of ... Fantasy", from several countries, I don't feel that this series has been particularly frequently reviewed.
Sybarite
07-Aug-2008, 09:20
Let me tackle a few things in Sybarite's #24:
I do not believe in the knock-on, or trickle down, effect that Sybarite suggests, i.e. that if more crime novels are sold in translation, it will help general fiction in translation. All it will mean is that publishers are choosing crime novels from a larger pool...
I didn't suggest that, Eric. In response to your suggestion that crime fiction was eating into some fixed pot of translated literature, I suggested that perhaps it was the other way around ? that because crime fiction is perceived as being more popular (easier to sell), increased translated crime fiction adds to the amount of fiction being translated. I didn't suggest that it would "help" anything ? but I have seen nothing to suggest that there is some set pool of translated literature in the UK and that crime fiction in translation stops other literature being translated, which was what you seemed to be implying.
... A lot of the sales are driven by hype. If something is pushed in your face every time you enter Waterstone's, it is likely it will sell more than things collecting dust in a dark corner of the shop, irrespective of quality or what people would read if they were aware of the choice...
Well, yes. Welcome to 21st-century capitalism and the market. But it's also true that the majority of people in the UK ? and I'm sure it's the same elsewhere, are just not interested in reading literary fiction.
... I think that if publishers put as much money and effort into promoting general fiction in translation, that too would sell...
Possibly. But then we have to ask whether we are talking about translated fiction in general or translated literature? I assume the latter, given your comments about crime (genre) fiction. So we come up against the same issue as we have discussed before ? that of whether the UK public wants to buy/read increased amounts of literary fiction, whether it's translated or not.
... The end of the net book agreement was not good for serious literature...
Yes. This is what I've said a number of times.
... What have people done to try to reverse the trend?
And what do you think they should all do? What have you done?
... The link between "the book" and "the film" is not always in the interests of literature. Once again, this nearly always means that if a book has been Hollywoodised, it will sell even more copies of the book. Once again, those people who craft books as books suffer...
Eh?
... Let's keep off the import of films and other things...
Eric, you make this so difficult, by apparently struggling to follow a debate. At no point did I mention filmed versions of books. I was using film as an illustration of markets in the UK; of responses to foreign-language culture, and of what might be seen as the more 'serious' end of cultural endeavour in general.
... We are talking about serious literature, similar to that written in Britain but coming from countries where they don't write in English...
Yes. That's why, in a previous thread, I was talking about 'literary fiction' as opposed to 'popular fiction'. Which you asked me to define. So I'm glad that you now seem to have got the point.
... I do not think that equal numbers of serious novels, not propped up by films and hype, that are written in Europe and elsewhere ever get into British bookshops...
Nobody's disputing that. But it's never going to happen. I doubt you'll find many mainstream, non-specialist French or German or Spanish or Italian bookshops where the stock includes the same amount of literature written in a foreign language and translated than literature written in the language of the country that that bookshop is in and the language of the overwhelming bulk of its customers.
... Small publishers are shunned by journos. Tell me the last time you saw a review of a book by Dedalus or Norvik in a mainstream British publication (date, name, etc., not generalisations)...
Oi! Cut out the ordering around, sunshine.
I don't know. I don't spend hours obsessing over the issue and reading every review there is that can be found. And when I read a review, I don't pay much ? if any ? attention to the publisher.
... You say:
Well done Eric. Yes I did.
... Why are journos so supine? You have to start hinting to your bosses that maybe you are big enough now to choose something to review, for a change. (They won't sack you immediately, though they may regard you as trouble and wait for an opportunity to do so.)
Oh my god ... Eric has now provided a revelation to me on how I ? and every other journalist in the world ? should do our jobs.
I'm going to fall on the ground in admiration and thanks.
Eric ? what qualifies you to tell anyone else what to do?
Perhaps we should all start telling you how to do your job?
... There are no deliberate policies among British book people to exclude European and other translated literature. It's just that publishers, editors and reviewers have never developed an interest in "near abroad"...
It's what sells, Eric. If it'll sell and it's translated, they'll promote it and market it and give it shelf space. But serious literature in general, regardless of language, does not get the kind of mainstream shelf space in many bookshops that popular fiction does. And that is not going to change in the foreseeable future.
... Most British publishers pat themselves on the back if they know a bit of French ...
As opposed to English translators who patronise people from other countries whose written English isn't 'perfect', eh?
Addressing some of Sybarite?s points:
Crime fiction will always be more popular than general fiction, as the former is regarded as more relaxing, while some fiction requires some effort to read. Not because it?s bad, but because you?ve got to get used to the style, etc.
I don?t believe there is a set pool or similar, simply that too many publishers look to crime novels as a profitable way of selling books.
Capitalism cannot be blamed for the philistinism of some publishers. Publishing, in Britain, was always under a capitalist system, allowing for a cooperative or two. But some publishers had (some still have) a degree of idealism. So you sell most books for profit, but plough some of the proceeds into publishing really worthwhile literature. If your publishing house is just another profit centre for Bertelsmann?s or Hachette, the central controllers are far too remote to care what is being sold. Britain should again become a nation of shopkeepers.
But even a small, privately owned corner bookshop has to break even financially. If it were owned by the state, the state would ultimately dictate the choice of books.
Hype is where the money is. If a number of foreign authors, translated for small publishers, were given the hoarding & book table & bookfest treatment, they would sell, even if published by tiny publishing houses. Most readers are indifferent to who publishes the book, as long as it?s good. But they must have their attention drawn to its existence.
Book and film. Do you remember that satirical song? Goes like this:
Doctor Zhivago,
Everybody?s heard of it.
I bought the book,
And read about a third of it.
Got to admit,
I didn?t get a word of it.
I?m waiting for the film to come.
I?m afraid I can?t trace it on the internet. But I even remember the tune. It rather sums up the profit symbiosis between the film industry and the book industry, and the slight laziness induced in people if they know they won't have to read it, just watch it.
Why is it that the Germans, Dutch, even the French have a much higher percentage of translated literature in their bookshops than we have in Britain? "It?s never going to happen" is rather a defeatist attitude. Things can be changed by enthusiasm.
I am not patronising people who only know English. I am simply stating the truism that such people limit their choice of literature from non-English-speaking countries to what has been translated. In Britain the number of serious novels translated is pretty small. Once someone has put effort into learning a language, any language, they will realise how difficult it is, and also realise that translators are indeed part of civilised society, bringing the fruits of neighbouring countries and beyond to a country that has neglected foreign languages for several decades. There is nothing to stop British people learning languages ? except prejudice.
Finally, people who do not have English as their mother-tongue need to be given a chance. But I find it unacceptable that some people cannot learn the basics of punctuation. And writing "i" instead of "I" rather implies a kind of SMS English, which is dumbing down. Typos and grammatical mistakes will be tolerated where there is a message to get across. But if "writing funny" becomes the be-all and end-all of the conversation, it ceases to be such, and ends up as kind of statement. Most foreign people strive to write English well. I have lived in enough countries teaching English as a Foreign Language there to know that some of the "mistakes" on this forum do not always ring true as examples of genuine ignorance, if you get my meaning.
Sybarite
07-Aug-2008, 14:12
... I don?t believe there is a set pool or similar, simply that too many publishers look to crime novels as a profitable way of selling books...
Okay. But you implied otherwise when you posted:
"I simply think that there are, proportionally, far too many translations of crime fiction into English, at the expense of ordinary novels, or general fiction in translation..."
In stating that you consider that crime fiction is published "at the expense of" other types of fiction, you implied exactly that.
... Capitalism cannot be blamed for the philistinism of some publishers...
If a publisher or a book chains believes that a translated title will sell lots of copies and, therefore, make lots of money, it will be given shelf space and it will be promoted. It really is a simple as that.
There is, however, always going to be the additional cost that a translated novel requires ? that of the translation. That will cut into profits.
... Publishing, in Britain, was always under a capitalist system...
The Net Book Agreement, as set up in 1900, was judged by the Restrictive Practices Court in 1962 to be of benefit to publishing, because although a restrictive practice (and therefore anti any idea of a free market), it enabled publishers to subsidise the publishing of work that would not be expected to sell as widely as the most popular books.
The end of the agreement strengthened the largest retailers and did severe damage to small and independent booksellers. But that is the nature of the current incarnation of capitalist economics ? a belief (misplaced as this situation shows) that total economic 'freedom' equals more choice for everyone. It's a flawed belief, since the reality, as we see with publishing, is that it doesn't. But money ? and profit ? is close to being god in the UK these days and overrides many other concerns.
... But some publishers had (some still have) a degree of idealism...
Very few in the real world.
... So you sell most books for profit, but plough some of the proceeds into publishing really worthwhile literature...
Or, as the big publishers ? and book chains did ? work to get rid of the Net Book Agreement that worked to promote such an idea.
... If your publishing house is just another profit centre for Bertelsmann?s or Hachette, the central controllers are far too remote to care what is being sold. Britain should again become a nation of shopkeepers...
They care what is being sold if it is or isn't making money.
... But even a small, privately owned corner bookshop has to break even financially...
Indeed.
... If it were owned by the state, the state would ultimately dictate the choice of books...
I wouldn't posit such an idea. But the Net Book Agreement helped to control, to an extent, the excesses of the drive for profit at the expense of quality in publishing. It was destroyed by big businesses wanting ever greater profits. That is capitalism for you ? or at least the stage to which capitalism has evolved (together with the globalisation and trans and multi-national companies, which have far more power to be able to control markets than ever before).
... Hype is where the money is. If a number of foreign authors, translated for small publishers, were given the hoarding & book table & bookfest treatment, they would sell, even if published by tiny publishing houses...
Yes. I've said this several times. They would sell if a publisher/bookseller thought that they would make money.
... Most readers are indifferent to who publishes the book, as long as it?s good. But they must have their attention drawn to its existence...
Having one's attention drawn to something can be effective, but it's not the only way. Many people go into a bookshop, for instance, and browse, with little clear idea of any specific intended purchase. If the books are there, in front of them, openly displayed, then they might choose something 'different'. But that means using space to be experimental ? and experimental cannot be counted on to always shift the most units and produce the greatest profit margins.
... I?m afraid I can?t trace it on the internet. But I even remember the tune. It rather sums up the profit symbiosis between the film industry and the book industry, and the slight laziness induced in people if they know they won't have to read it, just watch it...
That was not what I was attempting to get across. What I was attempting to do was paint a wider picture of cultural life in the UK. Foreign-language films, like translated literature, do not get given a wide release that allows the widest possible audience to access them ? partly for exactly the same kind of profit reasons that affect books.
You cannot see the question of translated literature in isolation.
... Why is it that the Germans, Dutch, even the French have a much higher percentage of translated literature in their bookshops than we have in Britain?
Probably for a vast number of reasons: one could ask why Continental cinemas invariably have a variety of films showing ? some from their domestic film industry, but others from the rest of the Continent and not just from Hollywood.
And the reasons are probably very much the same: more people on the Continent having a command of another European language. Land borders don't tend to create the same little-island mentality that being surrounded by the sea does.
You see? Cultural context helps us to get a wider picture.
... "It?s never going to happen" is rather a defeatist attitude. Things can be changed by enthusiasm...
I asked what you have done to change the situation. 'Enthusing' on this forum doesn't count.
... I am not patronising people who only know English...
Eric, you have criticised and patronised people on these boards for the standard of their written English, when English is not their first language.
... I am simply stating the truism that such people limit their choice of literature from non-English-speaking countries to what has been translated...
You have criticised and patronised people on these boards for the standard of their written English, when English is not their first language.
... In Britain the number of serious novels translated is pretty small. Once someone has put effort into learning a language, any language, they will realise how difficult it is, and also realise that translators are indeed part of civilised society...
And being part of a 'civilised society' doesn't include patronising and criticising people for the standard of their written English when it isn't even their first language (never mind telling them how they should understand their own country etc) ? or even if it is.
Is this really a case of you actually wanted to be praised and patted on the head for being a translator?
... bringing the fruits of neighbouring countries and beyond to a country that has neglected foreign languages for several decades...
Ah yes, it is. Eric, the bringer of the "fruits of neighbouring countries and beyond to a country that has neglected foreign languages for several decades". An heroic effort indeed.
... Finally, people who do not have English as their mother-tongue need to be given a chance. But I find it unacceptable that some people cannot learn the basics of punctuation. And writing "i" instead of "I" rather implies a kind of SMS English, which is dumbing down. Typos and grammatical mistakes will be tolerated where there is a message to get across. But if "writing funny" becomes the be-all and end-all of the conversation, it ceases to be such, and ends up as kind of statement. Most foreign people strive to write English well. I have lived in enough countries teaching English as a Foreign Language there to know that some of the "mistakes" on this forum do not always ring true as examples of genuine ignorance, if you get my meaning.
And this forum is not a classroom, Eric. You have not been appointed as a teacher here.
PS: you might want to note that, in the phrase "English as a Foreign Language", two of those words are not proper nouns. ;)
Sybarite, I think, thank goodness, that we are beginning to understand each other's point of view. I try my best not to imply, but to be blunt. But misunderstandings can arise, as can badly phrased sentences.
One comment of yours I'm still not entirely happy with, however, is:
There is, however, always going to be the additional cost that a translated novel requires – that of the translation. That will cut into profits.
This does not need to happen, if the publisher in question has any gumption. Most European countries have schemes in place which help the translators of their literature into foreign languages a lot. One of the key pieces of funding, one which helps publishers reduce the cost of a translation, is paying the translator for the translation work done.
The average book I've translated over the past few years has given me about ?8,000 (gross) per book. This is my fee for the translation, based on the number of words I do. The going recommended rate, by the Society of Authors / Translators Association, London, is ?0.85 per word. I have recently applied for, and received such money for a couple of Estonian books I've translated. The Estonians pay me direct. Other countries that do this include Norway, Sweden, Flanders, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, France, etc. The British publisher still has to pay for the printing, promotion, marketing, etc., but the money from the foreign fund covers the actual translation. And it is that cost which puts British publishers off translations.
I wasn't positing the idea of state-owned bookshops. But having seen how sewn up the whole Soviet system was, from manuscript, via censorship, editing, publishing to bookselling, I would rather the West didn't go down any too nannyish an avenue for bookselling. Both too much capitalist greed, and too much state control, are two extremes to be avoided.
I don't only enthuse on this forum, I nag and pester people beyond it. Being the nice docile translator that takes what the publisher tells you to translate isn't always the best way to help expand people's access to good literature from abroad.
The word "Continental" should be avoided. It implies that Britain is special, while lumping together the many different countries on the continent of Europe as if they were all the same. There is a world of difference between many aspects of culture if you compare Finland with Portugal, Greece with Belgium, etc. But in most of these countries, it is quite true to suggest that the upper end of society knows English, while British people do not reciprocate.
As for being patronising, I will leave it to the foreigners to point this out, if necessary. They can judge for themselves, and have every right to complain.
As for proper nouns and capitalisation, I deliberately used capitals in the way universities do to distinguish a specific academic discipline and skill (English as a Foreign Language) from a general comment (English as a foreign language).:cool:
Mirabell
07-Aug-2008, 18:18
As for being patronising, I will leave it to the foreigners to point this out, if necessary.
Yep. And I did point that out, twice.
(Been biting my tongue for two weeks now
but just a tiny sentence here
is irresistible.)
NYT: Lin Ullmann, A Blessed Child (trans Sarah Death) (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/books/review/DErasmo-t.html)
WashPost: nil
NYSun (1/2): Th?ophile Gautier, My Fantoms (NYRB anth, trans ?) (http://www.nysun.com/arts/anna-wingers-this-must-be-the-place-theophile/83731/)
Stewart
17-Aug-2008, 18:57
NYSun (1/2): Th?ophile Gautier, My Fantoms (NYRB anth, trans ?) (http://www.nysun.com/arts/anna-wingers-this-must-be-the-place-theophile/83731/)
Richard Holmes is the translator. I'll be looking forward to adding that one to my burgeoning NYRB collection. Looking at the book on the NYRB page, there's a quote from Baudelaire saying, "Posterity will judge Gautier to be one of the masters of writing, not only in France but also in Europe."
Posterity must be doing just that as another Gautier - Mademoiselle de Maupin - was recently published under the Penguin Classics range.
The latest LRB discusses Thomas Glavinic's Night Work (trans John Brownjohn), putting it in a poor light relative to his other writing. Unfortunately subscriber-only. The Independent gives it cursory coverage (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/night-work-by-thomas-glavinic-trans-john-brownjohn-890086.html); the Scotsman was there a month ago. But at least Glavinic is finally becoming available to English readers (but not U.S. til November).
I have my usual questions:
1) Is this another solipsistic Austrian egghead sicko, jumping on the literary bandwagon?
2) How does the translation compare with the original German language version?
Read:
Thomas Glavinic, lui, ?vacue d'embl?e dans Le travail de la nuit (Die Arbeit der Nacht), par une l?g?re ironie plus convaincante que mille d?veloppements, les raisons un peu trop farfelues (une exp?rience men?e par des extraterrestres, une catastrophe nucl?aire, etc.) qui expliqueraient la myst?rieuse et brutale solitude de son h?ros, Jonas, aval? par un monstre et soustrait ? la vue des autres. Dans Le travail de la nuit, Jonas ne sera toutefois pas rendu au monde des vivants. Apparemment, c'est l'esp?ce humaine tout enti?re qui a bel et bien ?t? aval?e par quelque vide inimaginable. L'?trange roman de Glavinic va se contenter de suivre, jour apr?s jour, les faits et gestes de son personnage dans un monde tout entier priv? d'autres hommes mais aussi de toute forme de vie animale. Brutalement confront? ? un absurde sans partage, Jonas n'a strictement aucun moyen de savoir la raison d'une aussi fulgurante disparition de toute forme de vie : une fois qu'il a compos?, des jours durant, tous les num?ros possibles et imaginables, consult? l'Internet de toute fa?on hors service, laiss? des messages ?crits dans tous les coins d'une ville qu'il ne cesse de sillonner au volant d'une voiture vol?e (ce terme, dans un monde priv? d'hommes, ne signifie d'ailleurs strictement plus rien), que va-t-il faire ?
I have my usual questions:
1) Is this another solipsistic Austrian egghead sicko, jumping on the literary bandwagon?
2) How does the translation compare with the original German language version?
1) Given that I linked the signandsight summary in opening the Austrian lit thread (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/general-discussion/1376-austrian-literature.html) (which you promptly relinked, thanks), you should have your answer. From said article: "Anyone who rejects my books is out of his mind." -- Thomas Glavinic, Das bin doch ich
At any rate, the capsule plot summary made me wonder about affinities with David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress.
2) Perhaps a future review will address. Meanwhile, what's the point in asking the perennial question?
Anyway, I thought that you were going to be covering the British end of reviewing the reviews. Get on the stick!
Nothing in the Sunday NYTimes or WashPost, but NYRB (http://www.nybooks.com/) include podcast of Edmund White on Marguerite Duras; for nontranslated nonUS/Brit, there's Cathleen Schine on Tim Winton's Breath, but it's subscriber-only.
Addendum: Oops! almost missed NYSun's Adam Kirsch (Friday, offcycle) on NYRB reissue of Elizabeth Mayer / Marianne Moore's translation of Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter (http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-magic-mountain-adalbert-stifters-rock-crystal/84867/).
Your turn, Nnyhav. I still don't get the feeling that this book has been reviewed very much. Can't find any British ones, beyond:
Night Work, by Thomas Glavinic, trans John Brownjohn - Reviews, Books - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/night-work-by-thomas-glavinic-trans-john-brownjohn-890086.html)
I've no time to read it, being bogged down with other reviews and translations, now that summer is past. I'm sure there are a few reviews into European languages, though.
Stewart
02-Sep-2008, 10:14
I still don't get the feeling that this book has been reviewed very much. Can't find any British ones, beyond:
Night Work, by Thomas Glavinic, trans John Brownjohn - Reviews, Books - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/night-work-by-thomas-glavinic-trans-john-brownjohn-890086.html)
Yes, it seems to have slipped unannounced onto the shelves. It interests me, given its strange premise, and someone I know on another forum saw it as a ****0 read. He was at the Edinburgh International Book Festival last month, although I hadn't picked up on the name at the time, otherwise I would probably have went along.
Not mainstream, but chockfull of translation reviews, is S/O/N of Bookforum (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_03)
Likewise with The Quarterly Conversation (http://quarterlyconversation.com) (TOCed here (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/3761-quarterly-conversation-issue-13-fall-2008-a.html#post7448))
Thanks, Nnyhav, for drawing our attention to the Bookforum and Quarterly Conversation websites. I've added them to my Favourites on my computer.
There is only one curious thing about American reviewers. Although the name of the translator is often mentioned, skimming the reviews, you rarely get the impression that the reviewer has thought about the book as a translation. This has its good and bad sides. The good side is that it reduces the aura of exoticism-fetishism surrounding translated works. The bad side is that the readers of the reviews often look at the book without taking into account the foreign culture it comes from.
For instance, it is trendy, nowadays, to refer to Kafka as a Czech. But he was a Czech with German as his mother-tongue, a Czech with a knowledge of Yiddish. So he is very different, language-wise, than, say Capek or Kundera. Language means a lot.
NYT: Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/books/review/James-t.html)(trans Alison Anderson) [off the main NYT books page but on the NYTSBR one]
nothing to see in the NYSun (which may be going out of biz shortly: See The Millions) (http://www.themillionsblog.com/2008/09/adam-kirsch-nation-turns-its-lonely.html) or the WashPost.
Thanks, Nnyhav, for drawing our attention to Muriel Barbery and her The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I had never heard of the author, nor even of the publisher:
Europaeditions - Home (http://www.europaeditions.com/index.php)
And something about the translator of this book, who is also an author in her own right:
Europaeditions - Authors - Alison Anderson (http://www.europaeditions.com/author.php?Id=21)
I see that a second Barbery novel will be appearing next year in English translation, this one called Une Gourmandise in French.
The French Wiki article about the author is here:
Muriel Barbery - Wikip?dia (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Barbery)
The hedgehog novel has sold around 600,000 copies in French. It'll be interesting to see whether the English translation sells as many.
Stewart
07-Sep-2008, 21:14
Thanks, Nnyhav, for drawing our attention to Muriel Barbery and her The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I had never heard of the author, nor even of the publisher:
Europaeditions - Home (http://www.europaeditions.com/index.php)
In the UK it's out from Gallic Books (http://www.gallicbooks.co.uk/?page_id=41).
Thanks, Stewart, I hadn't spotted that. Judging by all the hype, this book should sell a few hundred thousand copies in Britain too.
Gallic Books is new to me. Nice to see another specialist publishing house. The hedgehog book's been reviewed in the New Statesman. Let's hope it gets more British reviews. That NS review actually says something concrete about the translation:
Sadly, but not fatally, Alison Anderson's English translation mislays much of the poetry of the original. Literal rather than instinctive, it is uneven, inelegant and at times painfully infantilising: "saucisson" and "h?tel particulier" stay, but "coquilles Saint-Jacques" turn into "scallops in champagne sauce". When, as a favour for Ren?e, Manuela offers to bake an absolute abundance of pastries, her lovely answer to her friend's protests ("Me donner du mal? r?pond-elle. Mais Ren?e, c'est vous qui me donnez du bien depuis toutes ces ann?es!") becomes a sloppy "So much bother? But Ren?e, you are the one who has been going to a lot of bother for my sake all these years."
Perhaps one cannot re-create the play on donner du mal and faire du bien, but the sense of the original phrase should have been made clear: "Put myself out?".
So reviewer Heather Thompson is in my good books - she tackled the translation issue:
New Statesman - Charm and cleverness (http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/08/renee-barbery-hedgehog)
WashPost:
Michael Dirda on The Elegance of the Hedgehog (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091101955_pf.html)
Poet's Choice: Mary Carr on Anna Kamienska (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102257_pf.html): "I never stop wondering why my favorite poets of the previous century are Polish."
NYTimes:
Alex Berenson on Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/review/Berenson-t.html)(trans Reg Keeland)
and a little offtopic: Mick Sussman, erstwhile moderator of the NYTimes bookforums, gets an essay on the used-book cybiz (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/review/Sussman-t.html)
Any idea where a couple of collections by Anna Kamienska can be found in English? As you know something about her, Nnyhav, please tell us a bit more about her, and what you have read. Do you know of any, in the English or Polish languages? I know nothing about reviewer Karr, except that she's a Texan Catholic convert living in New York.
Stieg Larsson was a crime novelist, as far as I know.
Let's check these people out. We know so little about them. Any more leads?
As to Larrson: yes, I know you excepted crime fiction, but you take what you can get.
As to Anna Kamienska, the review is the first I'd heard of her. A quick google indicates that the only thing in print now has been out for about a year:
Polish culture: BOOK LAUNCHING: POEMS BY ANNA KAMIENSKA (http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/wy_in_ksiazka_kamienska_nowy_jork)
and from poems.com, a translator as well:
Anna Kamienska (1920-1986) was a major Polish writer, a peer of Nobel Prize winners Wislawa Szyrnborska and Czeslaw Milosz, of Zbigniew Herbert and Tadeusz R?zewicz. She left a legacy of fifteen books of poetry, notebooks that provide a shorthand record of her readings and self-questioning, commentaries on the Bible, novels for young adults, and translations from Slavic languages as well as from Hebrew, Latin, and French.
On a Sonnet by Leah Goldberg, by Anna Kamienska (http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13787)
Thanks, Nnyhav, for the Kamienska reference. I'd never heard of her before, though I have several books on my shelves by and about Polish poets. Maybe the fact she was a Christian poet smothered her reputation during Communist times. And in our secular age, she might not be that desperately popular now, either. Except in Catholic Poland, of course.
But I have found about 20 of her poems on the internet, and will read them.
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/4753-les-miserables-translations.html: Julie Rose scales The mountains of Les Miserables Graham Robb TLS (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4816401.ece)
Since there seems little interest in maintaining this thread, I'll stop now.
Surely, the Les Mis?rables translation was discussed somewhere on the BlogSpy thread.
Surely, the Les Mis?rables translation was discussed somewhere on the BlogSpy thread.
Surely it was. Surely I linked to it upfront. Surely the purpose of this thread is to gather all such reviews so that they're identified as such and not just scattered among the many other blogosphere offerings.
But just as surely I'm not going to be the sole provider of such links. Lest you think it's been otherwise: your #40 repeats my #36 (as mirabell's #14 reiterates my #6; #16 is only exception for near-contemporaneous, and to be fair, your #47, same book, new review), and you had the chutzpah to open that one with "Your turn". It's your turn now; I'll let you know when it's over. But then I already have.
Addend: Not just your turn. Surely. Any co-operative venture is a mug's game when there's only one co-operator.
Sicilian Tragedee by Ottavio Cappellani (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Leavitt-t.html?8bu&emc=bua2)
from the New York Times
This caught my eye because I bought The Leopard last week.
Thanks, Beth. More translations are always welcome. But you've got to know that they're out there. As Beth is looking at the USA, I thought I'd have a quick browse through the British papers. I'm concentrating on fiction, so most non-fiction will be ignored:
I had a look at the Guardian Review for 18th October 2008, but couldn't find any reviews at all of translated literature. There was an article by Orhan Pamuk about his father's library, translated by Maureen Freely, the American translator of Pamuk's works, but that was all, I think. I find the new layout of the Guardian Review pages a little hard to navigate, so I could have missed something.
The Alison Flood article about translations and Frankfurt from the previous day is downright depressing. Cramped stands and transvestite detectives.
*
Looking at the Independent, it also has a Pamuk feature, telling of how he went from being public enemy number one to a national hero. But it's all politics, and nothing much about his books. This newspaper also picks up on the non-literary Kundera story, which has been doing the rounds. But again, nothing about his books.
*
The Times has a books section tucked away in Arts & Ents. There's a futurological non-fiction book by one Jan Zalasiewicz - but he turns out to be geologist from Leicester. He'll be a second or third generation British Pole, rather than a Polish author from Poland. This paper also picks up on the Kundera informer story. Again, all politics and no fiction. If you see Schulz there, it's not Bruno, but Charlie. So: no translations reviewed.
*
The Telegraph Books section on 16th October 2008 has a review of a book by one Tommaso Carpegna Falconieri, but astonishingly, the reviewer doesn't even mention it's a translation and who translated it (William McCuaig). Here's an Italian website about the author:
Universit? degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo" :: Sito Web della Facolt? di Scienze Politiche (http://www.uniurb.it/scipol/index.php?module=CMpro&func=viewpage&pageid=13)
Otherwise, one review of a N?mirovsky book from 12th October. Another review that fails to mention the translator.
Conclusion: a dismal period in Blighty regarding translations. Not looked yet at the TLS and LRB. There is still hope.
I found a talking book in a short Guardian review: "Eug?nie Grandet" by Balzac. The review mentions the author and reader. Presumably this was a one-off, written in English by Balzac, as not translator is mentioned:
Review: Eugnie Grandet by Honor de Balzac | Books | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/25/audiobooks-roundupreviews3)
The Independent has a review by Boyd Tonkin of a Daniel Kehlmann book, translator Carol Brown Janeway:
Me and Kaminski, By Daniel Kehlmann, trans. Carol Brown Janeway - Reviews, Books - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/me-and-kaminski-by-daniel-kehlmann-trans-carol-brown-janeway-980015.html)
Here's (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/books/review/Warner-t.html?8bu&emc=bua2)
a review of The Only Son by St?phane Audeguy, translated by John Cullen from this week's NYT Books. Judith Warner writes the review; she's a tremendous op-ed writer and I was pleased to see this review with her byline.
I'd like to demonstrate the contrast between the number of reviews of translated books in the British daily press, where I tend to look at the Guardian, Times, Independent and Telegraph, and the Dutch quality daily to which I subscribe, Trouw.
Trouw too has a book section once a week (on a Saturday, like the Guardian) and there are reviews of books. I want to look at two random issues, that of 18th October 2008 and that of 1st November (i.e. yesterday) and will list the authors and books goiven long and short reviews. I threw the one in between away, hence the gap.
I am looking at translations into Dutch, the variety of languages translated from and the genre. This is not highly scientific, but these two weeks are quite representative. I translate the titles back into the original language, where possible.
Trouw, 18th October 2008
Small reviews (one paragraph):
Sebastian Barry: "The Secret Scripture" Ireland, (English 2006, Dutch 2008);
Emily Perkins: "Novel About My Wife", New Zealand, (English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Katja Lange-M?ller: "B?se Schafe", Germany, (German 2007, Dutch 2008);
Hans Magnus Enzensberger: "Hammerstein, oder der Eigensinn", Germany, (Germany 2008, Dutch 2008);
Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin: "Three Cups of Tea", USA, (English 2006, Dutch 2008).
Larger reviews (up to a page):
Steven Nadler: "Spinoza's Heresy, USA (English 2001, Dutch 2008) non-fiction;
Richard de Nooy: "Six Fang Marks and a Tetanus Shot", South Africa, (English 2007, Dutch 2008).
Not that many that week, and mostly from the English-speaking world.
The authors for 1st November in the next posting.
More reviews of translated literature in the Dutch daily, Trouw:
Trouw, 1st November 2008
Small reviews (one paragraph)
Bernard Wasserstein: "Barbarism and Civilization", USA, (English 2007, Dutch 2008) non-fiction;
Ingrid Winterbach: "Die Boek van Toeval en Toeverlaat" South Africa, (Afrikaans 2008, English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Pat Barker: "Life Class", UK, (English 2007, Dutch 2008);
Annie Proulx: "Fine Just the Way it Is", USA, (English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Claire Castillon: "On n'emp?che pas un petit cœur d'aimer", France, (French 2007, Dutch 2008);
Agn?s Humbert: "R?sistance", France, (French 1946, English 2008?, Dutch 2008) non-fiction;
Julian Bell: "Mirror of the World", UK, (English 2007, Dutch 2008) non-fiction;
Steve Toltz: "A Fraction of the Whole", Australia, (English first release 2008, Dutch 2008);
Pepetela: "Predadores", Angola (Portuguese 2005, Dutch 2008);
Elena Ferranto: "La figlia oscura", Italy, (Italian 2006, English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Elizabeth Hay: "Late Nights on Air", Canada, (English 2007, Dutch 2008).
Larger reviews (up to a page)
Jerome Corsi: "The Obama Nation", USA, [Reviews of the English edition] non-fiction;
Antonia Delfini: ["De laatste dag van de jeugd"; selected stories] (Italian ?, Dutch 2008);
Ian Rankin: "Exit Music", UK (English 2007, Dutch 2008);
Judith Katzir: "Dearest Anne", Israel (Hebrew 2003, English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Doris Lessing: "Alfred & Emily", UK, (English 2008, Dutch 2008);
Mikael Engstr?m: "Isdraken", Sweden, (Swedish 2007, English 2008, Dutch 2008) juvenile.
There was also a large joint review of five new Flemish novels. These are, of course, written in Dutch, but are still foreign literature from a Netherlands point of view, in the same way that Canadian literature is foreign to the UK: Dimitri Verhulst, Jan van Loy, Herman Brusselmans, Paul Baten Gronda and Jef Aerts.
This demonstrates that sometimes, no doubt, the Dutch translator translates from the English edition, or has the English edition lying around, but that sometimes the Dutch are maybe ahead of the English-speaking world. They also appear to choose quite widely. They are quick off the mark, maybe too quick, since not every new book is a masterpiece. But the Dutch show an alertness to foreign literature.
But the main point is that there are far more reviews, however small, of translated literature in this one Dutch daily than you can find in any one given week, if you look at the Telegraph, Independent, Times and Guardian.
The French daily Le Figaro has its book supplement on Thursdays (Le Monde's is on Fridays). Today's Le Figaro has the following:
Firstly, nothing to do with translation, but with re-evaluation. The Prix Goncourt is the main one-novel French literary prize and this paper asked today whether some of the novels that won the Goncourt during the 20th century are still readable today:
Le Figaro - Livres : Ces prix Goncourtsont-ils encore lisibles ? (http://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2008/11/06/03005-20081106ARTFIG00447-ces-prix-goncourt-sont-ils-encore-lisibles-.php)
Foreign authors in French translation discussed were Stefan Zweig, the American author Laura Kasischke, the Georgian-Russian author Boris Akunin, and the back page was devoted to the Swedish author the late Stieg Larsson (died 2004), including an interview with Larsson's brother Joakim.
About the Stieg Larsson trilogy that has appeared in French with Actes Sud, it says that it sold two million copies, since the appearance of the third book in the trilogy.
Not quite sure where to post this link (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Lethem-t.html?8bu&emc=bua1)
to a mouthwatering review of Roberto Bola?o's 2666. Headliner for this week's Book Review section of the NYT.
Mirabell
15-Nov-2008, 10:23
four translations and in three cases the translator is mentioned, to boot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/books/review/McCulloch-t.html?ref=books
Thanks, Mirabell. Nice to see that the NYT is discussing translations. Can anyone explain why Makine has had the honour of ten (!) of his books in English? That's quite a lot for one contemporary author in our translation climate. One devoted translator? Devoted publishing house? See the following for the English translations:
Arcade Publishing Authors (http://www.arcadepub.com/author/?fa=ShowAuthor&Person_ID=50)
I would like to continue to demonstrate that the one particular quality daily I subscribe to, Trouw, written in Dutch, has more reviews of translations of fiction and non-fiction in the weekly book section than all the four British dailies do combined. So these are the week's pickings, regarding recent translations into Dutch.
Trouw, 15th November 2008
Non-fiction translations, one-paragraph reviews:
Ian Kershaw: Hitler, a biography
The Kamasutra
Allan Hall: Monster (about Fritzl)
Lucretius: De rerum natura
Fiction translations, one-paragraph reviews:
Anne Enright: Taking pictures
Michael Kumpfm?ller: A Tale for Everyone
Botho Strauss: Mikado
Mario Sabino: The day I Killed My Father
William Burroughs & Jack Kerouac: And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
Poetry, one-paragraph reviews:
An anthology of Polish poetry [parallel text, Polish-Dutch]
Non-fiction, larger reviews:
Thomas Friedman: Hot, Flat and Crowded
Marc Lemonier: Les bienveillantes d?crypt?es
Philip Norman: John Lennon
Fiction, larger reviews:
Amy MacKinnon: Tethered
Jonathan Littell: Les Bienviellantes
Chris Priestley; Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror
*
I'm sorry, but I continue to insist that the British quality dailies, Guradian, Independent, Times and Telegraph do not, during a normal week, manage to review that many books in translation, and are therefore letting the side down, by their indifference to what is written in Europe. There are many translations from English in the Dutch papers, but it would be easy to find enough French and German books in translation to emulate Trouw, mutatis mutandis.
Mirabell
16-Nov-2008, 12:52
i said this before and you have not come forward with evidence to the contrary: this is not due to an indifference on the British part, but to the fact that vastly more books are published in English than are published in Dutch (or German). So this perceived imbalance is to be expected. "Demonstrating" it is like demonstrating that the sun rises in the morning. It can be done, but I expected as much.
In part, no doubt, the difference in numbers of reviews of translations is a reflection of the 3% versus, say, 50% that Germany has for translation numbers. But I still feel that in Britain there is a vicious circle:
No translations means no reviews means no interest in translations means no translations means no reviews...
The cycle of indifference can be broken in various ways. But all of them involve a much greater awareness throughout British society that "Continentals" write good books (as well as a load or rubbish, too). The problem has to be tackled on several fronts:
a) Publishers have to be made aware of national literatures, authors and books in a more consistent way. Nowadays, it's all word-of-mouth from foreign publishers, who tend only to pass on information about bestsellers.
b) Reviewers have to be educated into recognising that a body of work by specific authors is better than a one-off novel, hastily reviewed with little background knowledge. They have to take on board things produced by smaller presses, not simply act as the extended arm of the conglomerates whose principal aim is sales and quotas.
c) Academics must climb down from their ivory towers, involving unreadable theses and dissertations about minuscule aspects of an author and book, but become ambassadors for the literature written in the language they teach, liaise with translators, publishers and reviewers.
d) Translators must be recognised as knowledgeable about books, authors and cultures, not merely used as a quick and profitable fix when someone wins the Nobel, and the publisher smells money.
Mirabell
16-Nov-2008, 15:42
*sigh*
these points should emphasize things which are different there, right?
So you can completely scrap points b and c which equally apply here, as does, to a large extent, d.
Do you have these things prewritten on your desktop and just copy&paste them here?
Mirabell, the ball is in your court. If you were "translation czar" in Britain, to use that trendy term, how would you set about persuading my countrymen and -women that a healthy number of translations means a healthy literary climate? You suggest that I repeat things over and over (and over) again. Quite right. This ploy never did Goebbels any harm, except that he had the bad taste to craftily mix half-truths with whole truths, for maximum propaganda effect. I try to steer clear of the half-truths.
Mirabell
17-Nov-2008, 13:13
well you see I do not share your little napoleon complex
which makes you dispense advice four times a day
to gays, british journalists, the reading public etc.
plus I do not know the british market well enough
a solution that amends problems that this country with a far greater number of translations
also has, just makes not an awful lot of sense
especially since you yerself introduced the comparative apprach.
Guardian, Saturday Review, 22nd November 2008:
Translations and foreign literature in this issue included:
Christopher Tayler reviewing a life of M?rquez.
John Mullan reviewing an Ahdaf Soueif novel. As she writes in English this isn't really a translation, but she's a Palestinian.
Anita Sethi reviews a book of 16 new AIDS stories from India, but the reviewer doesn't mention whether the stories were written in English or are translations.
Maya Jaggi interviews and comments on octogenarian Communist and athe?st 1998 Nobel laureate Jos? Saramago over two pages. She mixes up translators with interpreters, not showing much knowledge on that score.
Ian Thomson reviews "The Pyramid", the latest Henning Mankell crime novel (translator Ebba Segerberg) to appear in English with Harvill.
A short anonymous crime review of Jean-Fran?ois Parot's crime novel "The Phantom of Rue Royale" (translator Howard Curtis).
A very short review, in a section, curiously entitled Marital Rows of Ibsen's "The Doll's House". (So this is where the Norwegian master has ended up, sharing this column with Albee, Trollope, Fielding and Chaucer.) Nagging rules, OK?
Lee Rourke reviews "The Courilof Affair" by Ir?ne N?mirovsky.
Ann Pasternak Slate writes all about the powerfully literary topic of what the Romanov dynasty used to wear... (The Chicquey Czar.)
Plus a lot of authors writing in English, who shall remain unsung by me.
The Guardian, UK, 6th December 2008:
Three things of note in this week's Guardian and Guardian Review. Firstly, nothing to do with translations, but with the slavish adherence to magical dates. A chap called Milton is 400 years old. So a third of the Guardian editorial is devoted to an author that the Guardian has suddenly rediscovered. Quoth the leader:
John Milton, who was born in London 400 years ago next week, was the greatest English poet after Shakespeare.
Whether many people think that Shakespeare was the greatest English poet is neither here nor there, but "the greatest" is a phrase I bridle at. What does it mean? Who chooses? The Guardian editorial scribbler?
There are two further mentions of Milton, both in the Review, this time. How many educated and literary British readers can claim that John Milton forms a regular part of their re-reading of British Greats?
*
Now on to translation. Two reviews strike me as odd:
Sergei Lukyanenko's novel "The Last Watch" is reviewed by Kim Newman. Newman says that "A slightly prosaic translation notwithstanding, the appeal of the series [of four novels] for English-language readers is the overlay of fantastical elements on the troubled complicated world of the Soviet Union". But not a mention of the name of the translator, or the language from which he / she translated it from. (Presumably Russian.)
Marlene van Niekerk's novel "The Way of the Women" (a translation of the novel "Agaat") is succinctly reviewed. Apartheid, maidservants, disability, the subversion of racial clich?s are all mentioned. What, however, is airbrushed from the review is not only the name of the translator, but the fact that this novel was written originally in Afrikaans. Is the name of that language still too sensitive to mention in our colour-blind world?
NYT: New German novels (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/books/review/Schillinger-t.html?ref=books&pagewanted=print): Settlement by Christoph Hein (Philip Boehm) & New Lives by Ingo Schulze (John E. Woods)
As I said, before it was accidentally rubbed out, these two books sound interesting as they deal with the former GDR, if I've understood rightly. I decided, looking in the internet, that the Hein would be more my cup of tea.
Mirabell
11-Jan-2009, 16:09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/books/review/Lourie-t.html?ref=books
2 from FT:
FT.com / Companies / Media - The secret history of China (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3b05cb72-dedc-11dd-9464-000077b07658.html)
"If history belongs to the victors, Dai Sijie's latest novel, Once on a Moonless Night , is a flamboyant attempt to give China's losers their day in the sun. Redressing the past is Dai's signature subject: his debut, Balzac and the Little Seamstress , was a tender elegy on expatriate memory. Its follow-up, Mr Muo's Travelling Couch , was a snappier reprise of the same theme, in which a long-exiled hero returns home to test his reminiscences against the new reality. Once on a Moonless Night revisits the motif, but this time the past is not personal but grand and national: Chinese history, in all its wayward splendour."
FT.com / UK - Murder in the air (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b67df898-dedb-11dd-9464-000077b07658.html)
"Niccol? Ammaniti found international fame with his fine novel I'm Not Scared , a dark parable of corruption set in 1978 in the heat-baked south of Italy. It was adapted into a successful film, which Ammaniti also scripted. H[/quote][quote]is new novel The Crossroads takes place in the present day, in the bone-chilling, water-logged north-east of the country. A tiny band of would-be criminals are planning an implausible robbery. At times there is something comical about the group - one is named Quattro Formaggi, after his favourite pizza - but there is also a tough sadness about their world. These are people who have been left far behind, lost in a soulless, affluent land of furniture factories, giant shopping malls and vain, status-hungry new rich."
Feb/Mar Bookforum is out (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05): a third of the reviews look abroad
LELAND DE LA DURANTAYE on The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3249)
ELIZA GRISWOLD on The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3253)
BEN EHRENREICH on The Siege by Ismail Kadare (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3254)
JESSICA JOFFE on Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3255)
BARRY SCHWABSKY on Sens-Plastique by Malcolm de Chazal (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3256)
AMY ROSENBERG on In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3261)
CHRIS LEHMANN on Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_05/3266)
The Guardian Review, UK, 7th February 2009:
Bigger Articles
Will Self on Max Sebald.
Lucy Ellmann on Charlotte Roche's "Wetlands".
I'm afraid that Will Self's surname is far too apt. This is a huge self-indulgent piece about Will Self, name-dropping like hell, and gives the reader little coherent idea what Sebald's books are about. It is an advert for Will Self, self, self, self...
The Ellmann article is, thank heavens, much shorter. It's the usual titillating review that starts out trying to ?pater les Guardianistas with lists of filth, then comes to a comfy conclusion at the end that Roche is a bold feminist, even though all she talks about is her cunt and piles.
Small Notices
Irmgard Keun's "Child of All Nations" (translated from the German by Michael Hofmann).
Jos? Saramago's "Death at Intervals (translated from the Poruguese by Margaret Jull Costa).
Plus The Most Borrowed Books of 2008 - the first 100, I presume this means fiction, but it doesn't say so. The list includes books for adults and children. It looks to be a very lowbrow list, and unless I am mistaken, we learn here that Brits don't borrow translations from libraries. I can't see one translation in the whole list. Even if there are one or two, the list doesn't bode well. This sort of language insularity would surely not be possible in any other country in Europe, except for, perhaps, Ireland, where the average reader is unlikely to read Gaelic novels, or Polish ones.
blogspotted at 3%:
Sunday's NY Times Book Review is Filthy with Translations
Hard to say that the New York Times doesn’t review translations after this week . . . In addition to Kakutani’s possibly insane review of The Kindly Ones, this weekend’s Book Review includes articles on four works of literature in translation.
more ... (http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=1714)
cf The Literary Saloon (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200902c.htm#kv2), which looks ahead another week ...
New media reviews of translations, too many to list (via 3% which does (http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=1716)), in the new TQC:
Issue 15 Quarterly Conversation (http://quarterlyconversation.com/issue-15)
I posted this on another thread yesterday, but I suppose it really belongs here:
Yesterday's "Guardian" Review section had a review by James Buchan of Hans Fallada's "Alone in Berlin", translated by Michael Hofmann. The original German title is "Jeder stirbt f?r sich allein". I think all of us will say 'hear hear' to this comment by Buchan:
"For the British publisher, this book is a "rediscovered" masterpiece - a sort of German N?mirovsky - and if that pitch finds readers in the English-speaking countries, so much the better. In truth, the book did very well in the Aufbau-Verlag edition, was filmed for television in both wings of divided Germany and then again for the cinema in the west in 1975 with Hildegard Knef and Carl Raddatz. I suppose by "rediscovered", Penguin means "translated into English".
Unlike a lot of reviewers, Buchan also pays tribute to the translator:
"For a translator, even one as experienced as Michael Hofmann, this book cannot have been easy, not so much on account of the Berlin dialect - "Wat jibt's denn Neuet?" rather than "Was gibt es denn Neues?" - but because of the sometimes slapdash German, the scenes that maunder or run out of puff, and the garish palette of effects. It is harder to translate mediocre German than good German. But Hofmann is a complete literary professional, and although he may prefer Kafka or Josef Roth or Wolfgang K?ppen, he gives this tough and shady author his all."
Harry
Interesting, Harry, the point about Penguin equating their own discovery of the author and having his book translated with what you could term "world rediscovery". I still find many British people horribly condescending and ethnocentric when it comes to discovering that there's a world of literary culture beyond Blighty.
If you set your Google search engine at "Hans Fallada" with "webpages during the last year" and "in the German language", you get 20,700 webpages. For "during the last week", you still get 158 entries for the German language. So indeed, "rediscovery" is relative. Especially, considering this novel was, evidently, the first one in German after WWII about the Resistance.
Even the English-language Wikipedia says that Fallada is "one of the most famous German writers of the 20th century". When you read the German Wiki entry, Hans Fallada (aka Rudolf Ditzen) does seem to have been a pretty weird character, though.
kpjayan
07-Apr-2009, 11:34
Translation boom helps India and West exchange new literature : (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/books/translation-boom-helps-india-and-west-exchange-new-literature_100175697.html)
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