Booktrust Translated Fiction Site

[Stewart]

Booktrust, which runs the translated fiction website, is committed to encouraging people of all ages and cultures to discover and enjoy reading. We are proud to be able to expand our work into the world of translated fiction and believe we are well placed to celebrate and broaden readers’ awareness of these amazing novels.

We also want to support the authors who wrote the books in the first place, and the publishers who have committed themselves to publishing these books in a highly competitive and increasing homogeneous market.

Additionally we want to praise the translators – the unsung heroes of contemporary literature – whose intelligence and creativity render into English novels that deserve to be read all over the world.

Booktrust's Translated Fiction website can be found here.

The interesting thing I note is that they say:

Many hundreds of other equally stunning novels from other languages have been translated into English, but these only account for about 3% of the books published in the UK.

Interesting, because it echoes the claims by Three Percent that:

Unfortunately, only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation...And that 3% figure includes all books in translation—in terms of literary fiction and poetry, the number is actually closer to 0.7%.

Can the UK and US really be that consistent with each other in the publication of translated fiction? It sounds too neat to be believeable.

[Eric]

I too have noticed the coïncidence of this mysterious statistic, about the percentage of books published every year that are translations, in Britain and the States. I cannot deny that I have spread the number myself.

But beyond the naked figure of three percent (which Three Percent has rightly highlighted) I would like to get a further breakdown (of figures, not nerves). Does this represent all books, as I believe, or various genres and sections of book publishing? I hope that The Bookseller or the Booktrust, or any periodical or organisation with professional resources, can investigate this.

Because, even if the figure is 6% or 9% for fiction, if that is treated separately, this would still be far, far below what the French, Germans and Scandinavians publish by way of translations.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. When I walk round Dutch bookshops (I live in the Netherlands), I almost think that there are too many translations. Translations of novels and collections of short-stories are so prevalent that they soon end up in the remainders bookshop De Slegte. This is a very good chain of bookshops, which also has a good second-hand section in most branches, but whose name, comically, means: The Bad One.

When, on the other hand, you walk round London bookshops (the capital, after all) the number of works from foreign languages is much smaller compared with the equivalent Dutch figure. While Heffer's and Blackwell's have some shelves of books in the original languages in university cities such as Oxbridge, the number of actual translations will surely be sent out to all branches of any bookshop chain, to maximise profits on each translated title.

These observations are just rule of thumb, what you can actually see (seeing's believing). But a serious investigation into the truth of the matter would be welcome.

As for stunning novels, I personally would rather read a novel than be hit over the head with it.

[Hazel]

Originally Posted by Stewart

Unfortunately, only about 3% of all books published in the United States are works in translation...And that 3% figure includes all books in translation—in terms of literary fiction and poetry, the number is actually closer to 0.7%.

Is that US percentage relating to translated into English? I was under the impression that Spanish was the primary, or most widespread, language in the US.

[Stewart]

Yes, into English. Where do you get the idea that Spanish was the primary language? If it was we'd all be watching Lost with subtitles.

[Hazel]

From wikipedia -

The dominant language of Latin America is Spanish...
The dominant language of Anglo-America, as the name suggests, is English... Spanish has become widely spoken in parts of the United States due to heavy immigration from Latin America.

It's just one of those random things I had in my head from Linguistics terms at uni. Spanglish, I believe, is the primary lingua franca, I believe.

[Eric]

Dominant languages. What is crucial about a language in international terms is not the grammar and linguistic make-up of any given language, but its status in political and social terms.

Although English "dominates" North America, and Spanish "dominates" Central & South America (with one huge exception: Brazil), this doesn't tell the whole story.

In India (a country of about 1,000 million people!), English, the language with which Indian people can connect with the outside world, has a powerful status as the language that also allows the native speakers of the 22 official indigenous languages (e.g. Hindi, Gujurati, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu) to communicate with one another. If the Brits hadn't conquered India and made it part of the British Empire, another language would have performed this duty (Hindi? Russian?). Because many of India's languages are not mutually intelligible, English became the main language of India.

However, only some 178,000 people (!!!) in India are said to have English as their true mother-tongue, or first language. So many of those Indian authors that have become world famous for writing in the "dominant language" English, thus making them eligible for the Booker and other English-only book competitions, will have another language as their true mother-tongue. But they write in English to reach an international audience. In so doing, they may have to compromise regarding nuances and couleur locale. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_India

http://www.languageinindia.com/nov2001/1991Languages.html

Ironically, ideology and political power are also as powerful as linguistics when it comes to distinguishing between languages. Hindi and Urdu are more or less the same language, written in different alphabets for ideological purposes, with some regional, religious and other differences. Ditto Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. Ditto Dutch and Flemish. But when politics and national pride are involved, names are used to separate. Post-apartheid South Africa has "only" eleven official languages. The European Union also has a complicated language situation. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union

The "dominant" language for international discussions within the EU may be English. But for European literature it is by no means the only literary language that counts. That is a major distinction.

[nnyhav]

US Gringos resist most LatAm imports, including the language and those who bear it. Cf Esposito on Bolaño ...

[Eric]

My problem with the reception of Latin American literature in the English-speaking world as a whole is that it has been typecast as magical realism of the Márquez stamp. Also, that Brazil (a country of some 800 million people) is not as prominent in literary terms, because it speaks the wrong language.

The "The Dream of Our Youth" article is interesting. My Spanish is lower intermediate, so I read the English version. A few comments:

The author is right in warning about the cult status of, in this case, Bolaño. If the climate in Britain (mutatis mutandis the same as in the USA) were normal, and translations appeared now and again and mixed in with English-language books, you would not have the hysteria that is generated when certain authors become suddenly famous.

There are many myths surrounding Bolaño, and we should be careful to distinguish the books from the author. The cult of a bohemian lifestyle is a little wearying. Some very well-off, aristocratic, civil-servantish, or otherwise un-vagabond types were just as good at producing novels, e.g., Mann, Nabokov, Kafka, Goethe, Trollope, and many others. The image of the drug-taking leather-jacketed tough with a soft and sensitive centre, beating the shit out of people in pub brawls, having affairs with either sex, and dying young, is a bit of a tiresome cliché. What about bourgeois writers who had a regular lifestyle and lived to the age of 85 in a quiet suburb? Even Bolaño appears to have cut down on bohemian excesses when he started writing seriously.

Venuti is perfectly right about context, but what's wrong with an introduction and notes for a translated novel? After all, every 19th century author of note has an introduction at the front of the Wordsworth Classics or Penguin Classics edition. So why not the same for foreign authors, where context is vital?

If translations make a loss financially, this is often offset by grants from the nation where the author comes from. Many European countries have funds set up especially to promote the national literature.

The statistic of Germany buying 4,000 U.S. titles and the U.S. buying 35 German ones says a great deal about cultural pressure and imperialism. (Mind you, Bertelsmann owns Random House.) Long after the British Empire has died, the English language still plays a hegemonic role worldwide in the field of literature on account of the fact that we "sold" our language to the USA.

So: more translations, more intelligent searches for funding, but fewer screamingly cult-status authors, where all their works are poured out glut-like onto the market, before the first couple of books have been digested by readers.

[Hazel]

Originally Posted by Eric

What is crucial about a language in international terms is ... its status in political and social terms.

Although English "dominates" North America,

Wouldn't French be the dominant language in this case?

Thanks for your post, Eric, very interesting.

[Stewart]

It's really nice to see that BookTrust have given World Literature Forum on their links page. Quite a surprise, but a welcome one certainly.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by Hazel

I was under the impression that Spanish was the primary, or most widespread, language in the US.

Originally Posted by Hazel

[ref North America]Wouldn't French be the dominant language in this case?

North America includes as its major countries Canada, the US, and Mexico.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by Colette Jones

North America includes as its major countries Canada, the US, and Mexico.

I don't think we're still on North America but referring to French as a dominant language internationally "in political and social terms", probably because there's francophone nations all over the world, so by percentage of countries where French is spoken, it can be interpreted as dominant. But with many of them being island states, it's not likely.

[Colette Jones]

Okay, I think...

It's just that this:

Wouldn't French be the dominant language in this case?

was in response to this:

Although English "dominates" North America,

You might say French is dominant in Canada, but surely not North America.

[ions]

Originally Posted by Colette Jones

Okay, I think...

It's just that this:

was in response to this:

You might say French is dominant in Canada, but surely not North America.

While it is the second most popular language spoken at home (22% according to the last Canadian census) it is not what you could call dominant. I won't be surprised if Chinese, which is the 3rd most often spoken at home, eventually surpasses French. C'est la vie.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by ions

While it is the second most popular language spoken at home (22% according to the last Canadian census) it is not what you could call dominant.

I would have thought it was higher than that, but as you say, not dominant.

[Eric]

In message #10 on 11th May, Stewart draws or attention to the Booktrust list of URL links for various literatures in translation in a section entitled Explore the internet to find out more about translated fiction. There are about a dozen languages and links (Bengali, Catalan, etc.). I wonder who it was that compiled the original list of those links...

Statistics can be slippery. People may say to a survey that they have French as a "second language". But what does that mean? Can they mutter a few sentences, have a complex conversation or read a newspaper or novel in French? And who says that people don't lie to surveys, just because they want to look educated or politically correct?

As for Chinese, once again we are being browbeaten by statistics. There are, for a kick off, two major forms of Chinese: Mandarin and Cantonese, which are rather different, so I'm told. Then, when comparing Chinese with English, the latter is far more widespread and is used far more as a lingua franca.

The number of native-speakers is not the criterion for the international status of a language. Hardly anyone in Europe, Africa and North-Central-South America speaks one word of any form of Chinese (unless they have immigrant connections with China). Whereas most leading people, the world over, try to learn English to communicate internationally. Even the Chinese neo-imperialists who are buying up raw materials in Africa will do their dealings in English or French.

The dominance of a language has a lot to do with international political dealings, and which countries are speaking the "world language" of the day. Latin was once the world language, French had its day, but Chinese? With its difficult writing system of ideograms as a further handicap, it will only be top language if China conquers the world by war or trade. And crucially for this forum, a body of literature has to exist that is of the same type (e.g. fiction, poetry) and on the same wavelength as that of the West.

Spanish may be on the increase in the USA, but has by no means the same social status as English. I would imagine that any author in the USA writing in Spanish will surely look to South America of Spain to publish their works if they want to become successful internationally. Or they may change over to writing in English.