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PEN World Voices: Publishers Weekly: On Translation report

by literary saloon on May 02, 2008

The Publishers Weekly: On Translation-panel was the event I’d had the highest hopes for. It offered an impressive line-up: PW-editor Sara Nelson moderated, and publishers Edwin Frank (New York Review Books), Michael Krüger (German Hanser Verlag), Halfdan W. Freihow (Norwegian Font Forlag), and Morgan Entrekin (Grove/Atlantic) made for a good trans-Atlantic mix.

They all discussed their experiences with publishing translation—with the American representatives not being entirely representative, as both their houses publish a larger percentage of titles in translation than most (or all) of the large American publishers. Still, all noted the wide disparity between the Anglo-Saxon world and Europe, with much more translation published in the European markets. The majority (50 to 60 % in his case, Krüger said) of translations still are from the US-UK area—but interestingly several panelists mentioned (anecdotally and from experience) that there has been a slow-down of US/UK titles getting translated, both because so much of it is agented (which tends to drive up the price, making it cheaper to translate from other languages) and, possibly, because there was a glut of American-British translations in the 1980s and 90s (including, presumably, too much crap).

Translation-funding was repeatedly discussed. Krüger noted that in Germany being a translator is a respected profession (and one off which one can live), while in the US publishers seemed to consider translation costs as simply sunk costs, not even caring much about finding the best person for the job. Freihow mentioned that one reason even a tiny country (4.5 million Norwegian speakers !) could sustain university departments in obscurer languages is that students know that they can fall back on literary translation from those languages, which will always be in (at least limited) demand.

The Europeans remained baffled by the lack of translation-subsidies in America (they just can’t get over the fact that it’s politically unthinkable for public money to be used that way). More troublingly, Krüger believes that, as the conglomerates take over much of publishing, the Europeans, too, are inevitably moving towards a university-press system, where certain types of books can (only) get published on the public dime—showing little understanding of the American university press system where there is now also a great deal of pressure to balance the balance-sheets. (As we mentioned recently, there even seems to be a strong trend towards books that get published by ‘normal’ publishers elsewhere (the UK, Canada) only getting published by a university press in the US.)

Krüger also spoke a great deal about the obligation to publish good books—worthy stuff, even if it’s a money-loser, an argument where most Americans’ eyes seem to glaze over immediately (or is a fantasy they can only dream of ...). He spoke with pride of publishing something like the works of Manilo Sgalambro, even if it sold only 400 copies—and thinks the fact that he was willing to publish that is worthy of a mention in his New York Times obituary: that’s the sort of publisher he’d like to be remembered as. Of course, in the US, where the only argument is about the bottom line, that’s not exactly something to be proud of—in fact, it sounds a lot like self-indulgence. (Personally, I think that’s the way publishers should think and act—purely self-indulgently (with maybe a nod towards indulging me ...)—but in corporate dominated American publishing firms that obviously won’t fly.)

The panelists also noted that the situation is much worse in the non-fiction area—even in Europe. Freihow noted that small languages were losing many of their non-fiction authors, who now often write in English, while Krüger noted that from what one finds in translation one would think many, many countries (such as all of Eastern Europe) have no historians or economists or local thinkers producing any non-fiction—which is, of course absurd: they’re there, but they’re just not getting translated—into any language.

A fairly interesting panel, on the whole, and an interesting contrast of experiences—but I’ve reached a point where such generalization-filled talk isn’t enough any more. This sort of panel serves as a nice introduction to the issues (and usefully offers some different perspectives—though not many of the ones I’m really interested in (what about translation in India ? in the Far East ? at the US Bertelsmann subsidiaries or similar conglomerates ?). Now I’d like to see some more narrowly-focused discussions (addressing specific issues).

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