NYT Article: Translation Is Foreign to U.S. Publishers

Last Saturday, The New York Times published an article by Motoko Rich titled Translation Is Foreign to U.S. Publishers. It was about literary translation and Americans’ supposed lack of interest in (translated) foreign-language literature. Some excerpts:

It is a commonly held assumption that Americans don’t like to read authors who write in languages they don’t understand. That belief persists here in Frankfurt, where publishers from 100 countries show off a smorgasbord of their best — or at least best-selling — books.

. . .

Although there are exceptions among the big publishing houses, the editors from the United States are generally more likely to bid on other hyped American or British titles than to look for new literature in the international halls.

According to Chad W. Post, the director of Open Letter, a new press based at the University of Rochester that focuses exclusively on books in translation, 330 works of foreign literature — or a little more than 2 percent of the estimated total of 15,000 titles released — have been published in the United States so far this year.

. . .

“The U.S. is too isolated, too insular,” Mr. Engdahl said in an interview with The Associated Press. “They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”

. . .

“The translation costs are often a deterrent or a reason not to translate a book,” Ms. Ramael said.

Some of the larger American publishers said monolingual editors fear making risky buying decisions based on short translated excerpts.

. . .

“American publishers are depriving the American readership of the cultural diversity through translation to which they are entitled,” Ms. Noble said. “It is what I call the poverty of the rich.”

. . .

Read the full article following this link.

Tags | Palavras-chave: literary translation, tradução literária