QUILLBLOG

Whither the art of translation?

Guardian scribe Richard Lea has written a longish piece about the dearth of translated works in the English book publishing market.

In any library or bookshop, the vast majority of books on the shelves are by authors writing in English. In stark contrast to publishing throughout the rest of the globe, translated fiction accounts for only a tiny fraction of the books published in the English-speaking world. In Germany 13% of books are translations. In France it’s 27%, in Spain 28%, in Turkey 40% and in Slovenia 70%, but in Britain and America the best estimates suggest that the fraction of books on the shelves which started off in another language is somewhere around two per cent.

Just to interrupt here for second, how much do these stats really mean? It may well be that smaller countries like Slovenia and Turkey just don’t have as extensive (or well-supported) a literary scene as Britain or the U.S., requiring the importation of more foreign authors. But back to the piece:

Translators also suffer from a lack of status [...] Translation is considered by many universities to be insufficiently significant or original to add lustre to an academic CV, while publishers routinely sweep evidence of translation off the covers of books. “It’s weird,” says Allen. “There’s no stigma attached to being an actor rather than a playwright, or a pianist rather than a composer, but there’s this horrible stigma attached to being a translator.”

Can we interrupt again? Is there really “a horrible stigma” attached to being a translator? They surely suffer from a general lack of recognition, but they’re not exactly the damned. And there’s something weird, too, about the attempt to liken the art of translation to the art of acting or playing the piano. Yes, all three jobs are “interpretive,” but theatre and music require actors and musicians to bring a work to life. A novel does not need such mediation; we value the art of writing specifically because it is a direct communion between author and reader. Consequently, translations are always going to fall just short of the ideal. Does that mean translations aren’t worth doing? Of course not. But to deny that there’s something just-slightly-less-than-desirable about them is pointless.

In any case, the most level-headed commentator in Lea’s piece is probably Bloomsbury’s Bill Swainson, an enthusiast for literature in translation who published W.G. Sebald and Javier Cercas, among others.

He’s “sceptical” of figures suggesting that only around two per cent of books in the U.K. are translations. “I think the way to look at it is: ‘Are the good books coming out in the rest of the world finding their way into English, and in good translations?’,” he suggests. “And I think the answer is, ‘Yes, a great many are’.”

Here in Canada, of course, there’s a whole other kettle of fish: are enough of our French-language authors translated into English? Thoughts, anyone?

Comments are closed.