Lost in Translation

The United States is sucking hind teat when it comes to literature in translation. We’re positively isolationist.
These stats are from the Sunday New York Times, by Jascha Hoffman.
For example, Publisher’s Weekly, only reviewed 28 original books in translation last year. Little better than 2 per month. Totally dismal.

29 % of the books published in the Czech Republic were translations. 22 percent published in Italy. In the U.S. 2.62 percent of the books published were translations. Major works haven’t even been published here, such as Mario Vargas Llosa’s 1971 biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a national disgrace.

Currently, I am reading Three Trapped Tigers, which is a translation, and Proust, which is also a translation. Recently, I read Measuring the World, translated from the German, a fantastic book. We miss so much. One bright note: Khaled Hosseni’s The Kite Runner was on the paperback best seller list for many weeks. I see that it has disappeared. Why are Americans so isolationist in their reading? It’s scary, that’s what it is.

This is the week of the London Book Fair where many deals are made for foreign rights. The world is buying us, but we are ignoring the world. At our peril, literary and otherwise.

Grapeshot